Class _ 



V 



t 



The 

People's Church 



Pulpit. 



EDITED BY 

J. W. HAMILTON, 

Pastor of the People's Church, Boston. 



SECOND THOUSAND. 



THE 



BOSTON: 
PEOPLE'S CHURCH. 
1885. 



\ 1> 6 




Copyright, 1884. 
J. W. H A. MIL t O 1ST, 
Boston. 



Press 0/ Dclaud b* Bur/a, Boston. 



M % bese tbwgs came to pass 
from small beginnings because (§ob is just." 



EDITORIAL. 



The Congregationalist, printed at Boston, gave the 
following account of the religious services at the 
opening, and not the dedication, of the People's 
Church, in its issue of February 21. "The ' People's 
Church ' in this city was, for some reason, the 
hardest to dedicate of which we ever heard. It 
seems to have taken one day more than a week." 
Remembering how frequently persons " do err, not 
knowing the Scriptures," the pastor of the church 
took the precaution to provide against his being 
charged like the Athenians, with spending his time 
in announcing " some new thing," by printing within 
a scroll on the cover of the programmes, which 
he confidently believed would arrest the atten- 
tion of every person receiving one of them, the 
following, found in the thirty-ninth verse of the 
twenty-third chapter of the third book of Moses, 
called Leviticus : — " Ye shall keep a feast unto the 
Lord seven days. On the first day shall be a Sabbath, 
and on the eighth day shall be a Sabbath." 

The wisdom of the appointment in thus following 
the order of the old economy was evident to the 
many thousands of hearers who were gratified with 
the privilege afforded them of not only being ad- 
mitted into the church, but hearing so many of the 
eminent preachers of the country under such agree- 



vi 



The People s Church Pulpit. 



able auspices. Had there been an appointment for a 
single opening service, or indeed several services 
upon a single Sunday, the limits of even the great 
audience room would have been provokingly restricted 
to but a comparatively small number of the multitudes 
who came seeking admission to the building, during 
all of the eleven consecutive meetings. Notwith- 
standing tickets of admission to all these meetings 
and for every seat in the house were distributed only 
to persons who called for them during the week pre- 
ceding, hundreds of applicants went away unable to 
obtain them. Many ministers as well as laymen 
came from different sections in all the New England 
States to be present through a part or the whole of 
the week. 

The number of meetings also made it possible, as 
it was eminently proper, because of the widespread 
interest among the different denominations in the 
new church, to invite representative preachers from 
each of these differing and neighboring churches to 
preach and otherwise assist in the services. 

A supplemental day was added to the opening- 
services, when no tickets were required, so that all 
who had been unable to obtain admission previously, 
might enjoy a special service. The sermons preached 
during that day have also been included in this 
volume. 

The congregational singing during all the services, 
led by the chorister of the church, C. J. Littlefield, 
with a chorus of one hundred and thirty singers, was 
one of the most inspiring features of the occasion. 
Never were the old hymns sung more lustily, and 
the singing more enjoyed by any people. 

The preachers were solicited to furnish these 



Editorial. 



vii 



sermons for publication, that many persons who had 
been interested in promoting the work of the church, 
but were not able to attend the meetings, might be 
able to read what they had not been able to hear. 
And not least among the reasons for printing them 
was the use that could be made of them, in book 
form, for increasing the amount of the Building 
Fund. 

The sermons appear in the form in which they 
were delivered, having been reported so accurately 
and satisfactorily, as, in two or three instances, to 
receive from the preachers no changes whatever. 

A memorable interest will always be awakened by 
a reference to the opening services in the People's 
Church, and a special importance be given to the 
People's Church Pulpit, since the first sermon in both 
was the last sermon of the eloquent and honored chief 
pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the late 
Rev. Bishop Matthew Simpson, D.D., LL. D. Pros- 
trated soon after his return to Philadelphia, he was 
unable for many weeks to give any attention whatever 
to the manuscript of the sermon ; but during his con- 
valescence, previous to the relapse which ended in his 
death, he corrected the stenographer's report with his 
own hand, as the last literary effort of his life. 

The editor desires gratefully to acknowledge the 
kindness and generous spirit with which all the 
preachers have so cheerfully contributed their ser- 
vices, and consented to the publication of their 
sermons. 



People's Church Parsonage, 

Boston, August i, 1884. 



OPENING HYMN. 



(Written by the Pastor.) 

To thee, O God, we here erect 
A house of praise and prayer, 

Where neither pride, nor price, nor sect 
Excludes the worshipper. 

If ever here, through wavering minds, 

Such sin the heart enslaves, 
Charge them that Christ a brother finds 

In every man He saves. 

Forbid that class and color more, 

Within the house of God, 
Should separate the rich and poor, 

When Christ hath homeless trod. 

Teach us, O Father, here to love 
Our neighbors as ourselves, 

Who wrong us, to forgive; and prove 
That Christ ourselves forgives. 

Thy worship here will then subdue 

Unholy lives and hearts, — 
O Holy Ghost, our minds imbue 

With truth which love imparts ! 



viii 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Pagb 

Editorial v 

Opening Hymn viii 

The People's Church . • . . . . xi 

I. 

Christ and His Church. Isaiah ix. : 6 . . . I 
The Rev. Bishop Matthew Simpson, D. D., LL.D. 

11. 

The Church for the Times. Ezekiel x. : 2 . . 25 
The Rev. Joseph Cook. 

III. 

The Creed of the People's Church. James ii. : 1 53 
J. W. Hamilton, Pastor. 

IV. 

True Manliness. / Cor. xvi. : 13 .... 81 
The Rev. Phillips Brooks, D. D. 

V. 

The Mission of Christ. / Timothy i. : 15 . . 103 
The Rev. J. P. Newman, D. D., L L. D. 

VI. 

The Aristocratic Spirit not of the Gospel. 

Luke xiv. : 12,13, r 4 123 

The Rev. J. M. Buckley, D. D., L L. D. 

ix 



X 



Table of Contents. 



Spiritual Power. Acts i. : 8 145 

The Rev. O. P. Gifford. 

VIII. 

Mysteries Solved. John vii. : 17 ... 159 
The Rev. J. O Peck, D. D. 

IX. 

Man a Spirit. Psalm viii. : 4 183 

The Rev. Bishop Randolph S. Foster, D. D., L L. D. 

X. 

The Glory of the Latter House. Haggai ii. : 9 . 199 
The Rev. Bishop Jabez P. Campbell, D. D., L L. D. 

XI. 

The Gospel Leaven. Matthew xiii.: 33 . . . 221 
The Rev. W. F. Mallalieu, D. D. 

XII. 

The Avowal of Christian Assurance. Romans i.: 16 241 
J. W. Hamilton, Pastor. 

XIII. 

False and True Love for Christ. John xxi. : 17 267 
The Rev. J. H. Vincent, D. D. 

XIV. 

The Final Judgment. Revelation xx. : 12 . . 287 
The Rev. Luther T. Townsend, D. D. 



THE PEOPLE'S CHURCH. 



The People's Church came by inspiration. If it 
has been of slow growth, it has been of continu- 
ous growth. Originated during a period of great 
financial depression, it has demonstrated its right to 
a place and work among the established churches in 
the great city, in the face of obstacles as inexplicable 
as they were apparently insurmountable. If one mind, 
and heart, and hand, may have taken occasion of the 
inspiration to bring about its consummation in brick 
and stone, it nevertheless " began, in idea, not in one 
man's mind but in many. To some it may have been 
only an imagining ; to not a few it has been the growth 
of necessity ; to more than one it has been a clearly 
defined, inevitable accomplishment of Providence." 

Less than twenty years ago, the Protestant Churches 
in this country became aware of a growing neglect 
by their ministers and members of the great common 
people in the large cities, and a reciprocal carelessness 
for the churches by the people, who had also come to 
feel themselves thus neglected. The consciousness 
and observation of such neglect awakened a spirit of 
inquiry upon the part of all the churches ; frequent 
discussions arose as to the cause of the neglect, 
and plans were projected in every direction to remedy 
the evil. The perplexing problem of how to reach 
the masses, became the all-absorbing question of 

xi 



xii 



The People s Church. 



ministers in their conferences, and laymen in their 
church meetings. It was found that personal inter- 
ests, selfish and sinful, had come to preside in the 
churches, and correspondingly invidious distinctions 
were being constantly made, whereby easy apologies 
were afforded the people feeling themselves thus ag- 
grieved for all their indifference to the claims of the 
churches upon them. Relative locations within the 
houses of worship had become a matter of price, and 
the architecture of the buildings forced the invidious 
distinction which money had made, into such promi- 
nence as to provoke the most hostile feelings, or so 
disturb the sensitive natures of members in the 
same church as utterly to prevent " the intimacy of 
friendly society among themselves." The policy of 
the churches was fast becoming a commercial one, 
and the Scriptural methods of supporting the gospel 
by the preaching and practice of the broad and intel- 
ligent principles of Christian benevolence were falling 
into a lamentable desuetude. Assessment was log- 
ically displacing appeal. 

Empty churches, eloquent with pride, possessed 
more of the form than the power of godliness, and 
their imminent peril compelled the preachers to 
seek a recovery of their pulpits from the embar- 
rassments of mere monetary restrictions, and the 
societies to consider and secure a freer and more equi- 
table worship. The work of the evangelist was given 
a greater prominence, and the irregular worship of 
little bands here and there, within and without the 
churches, which were led by laymen, came to be more 
popular than the regular church worship. The even- 
ing social meetings were more largely attended than 
the preaching services, and the open-air meetings, 



The People s Church. 



xiii 



and street preaching of fifty and a hundred years ago 
suddenly revived. The Young Mens' Christian As- 
sociations were made to abound more and more; 
and the conditions were favorable to, and productive 
of, just such eccentric religious worship and work 
among the common people, as we have seen prosper 
and grow under the leadership of the generals and 
captains of the Salvation Army. A corresponding 
prejudice was excited against the cathedral architec- 
ture in church structures, which was declared to build 
"simply a magnificent sepulchre for the worship 
whose central idea demands that the voice of one 
man be heard by every worshipper." The chapel be- 
came more popular than the church, and religious 
meetings were still more largely attended when held 
in public halls. " Cheaper buildings and plainer finish 
were called for all over the land." The popular meet- 
ing-house had its name changed to tabernacle, and 
"Dwight L. Moody, following the indications of 
Providence, crossed the ocean, and opened the doors 
of the British Empire to the gospel of the common 
people, and step by step he moved among the cities, 
until he had tabernacled the towns of the English, 
Scotch, and Irish Isles." His return to this country 
signalized a determined attempt upon the part of the 
Churches inviting him, to retract the policy grown to 
such hazardous dimensions in the great churches in 
American cities. 

As early as 1873, when the writer was appointed 
to the pastorate of the conjoined societies of the First 
Methodist Episcopal and Grace Churches, which 
came together in the church on Temple Street, the 
idea of a great church for the people began to take 
shape in his own mind, and seek some practicable ex- 



xiv 



The People s Church. 



pression in Boston. The two societies united, repre- 
sented more wealth than any other church of the de- 
nomination in the city ; and the sympathies of the 
congregation were readily enlisted, and the support of 
the people was cheerfully promised, for such an under- 
taking. After months of inquiry for some suitable loca- 
tion, upon which to build a building adapted to the needs 
of a great congregation, it was found that the Music 
Hall property, great organ and all, might be made 
available, and could be secured. It was a startling 
proposition to make — the purchase of the Music Hall 
for a church, a property valued at from $400,000 to 
$600,000. But it was believed, if it could be secured, 
its history would give such prestige to the enterprise, 
as to create an enthusiasm which no other edifice or 
surroundings could inspire. The first suggestion 
was made to the late Rev. Bishop Gilbert Haven, then 
editor of Zioris Herald. He at once approved of the 
project, and said, "I can introduce you to a man who 
can help you, if he will." He gave the name of the 
late Cyrus Wakefield, Esq., who was then at the head 
of the great rattan trade in this country, and one of 
the largest real estate owners and dealers in Boston. 
The editor engaged with the writer to go and see 
him. The appointment was kept, and Mr. Wakefield 
was found willing not only to co-operate but to ini- 
tiate the movement, by becoming responsible for the 
purchase of the shares in the stock company by which 
the property was held, and to advance $100,000 to- 
ward the amount needed to consummate the purchase. 
A subscription of an additional large sum of money 
was secured, ex-Governor Wm. Claflin having drawn 
up the subscription papers, and himself subscribed 
the first $10,000, and in the course of the year, the 



The People's Church. 



xv 



control of the property passed into Mr. Wakefield's 
hands. But before any transfers had been legally ar- 
ranged, and within a short time after the purchase had 
been made, without any premonitions whatever, Mr. 
Wakefield suddenly died at his home in the town of 
Wakefield, and the property was left for the adminis- 
trators to adjust as a part of his estate. The financial 
panic followed soon after these transactions, and the 
great burdens resting upon the benevolent men of the 
denomination in the city, made it necessary to aban- 
don the Music Hall enterprise. 

The Rev. Bishop Haven, not satisfied with the 
single attempt to secure the success of the idea, 
insisted upon a second effort being made from a 
different standpoint, and in a section of the city 
where its geographical centre was soon to be, and 
where its largest population already resided. He 
was warmly supported by the late Rev. Bishops 
Janes and Ames, and also by the resident Bishop 
Wiley. At the expiration of the pastoral term in 
Temple Street, the writer was urged to make the 
second attempt in the locality of the Church Street 
church, and accordingly the appointment was made 
to this old society, by the late Rev. Bishop Simpson, 
in April, 1876. Discouraged and despondent, the 
few remaining members in this society had the year 
previous to the appointment suffered a resolution to 
be offered in the quarterly conference, which pro- 
posed a disbanding of the church organization. The 
church property had been mortgaged, during two 
successive years, to the amount of $3,000 a year, for 
the payment of the current expenses of the society, 
and about the full amount of the equity in the prop- 
erty above the mortgage was held by the pew- 



xvi 



The People s Church. 



owners. A company of laymen, gathered from the 
city and vicinity at large, joined the pastor in the 
new undertaking, and with the few friends in the 
Church Street society, who were willing to stand 
together and share the responsibility of the great 
work undertaken, the church for the people was 
again projected. The pew-holders were first person- 
ally solicited to contribute the ownership of their pews 
toward the new church, which they consented to do ; 
and a subscription to the value of the mortgage 
existing upon the old church property was then soon 
obtained. The eligible lot consisting of nearly half an 
acre of ground, at the corner of Columbus Avenue 
and Berkeley Street, belonging to Joseph E. Brown, 
a former member of the old society, was secured as 
the site for the new structure. The owner contrib- 
uted from the price of the land the sum of $12,000 
towards its purchase ; and a contract was made with 
a company of builders in the city, to begin the erec- 
tion of the new edifice, they taking the old church 
property in part payment for the work. 

The cornerstone of the chapel and parsonage was 
laid on the afternoon of May 27, 1877, by the Rev. 
D. Sherman, D. D., presiding elder of the Boston 
district, many of the neighboring pastors assisting in 
the preliminary services, and the following ministers 
delivered the addresses : — The Rev. Dwight L. 
Moody, the Rev. Phillips Brooks, of the Trinity 
Protestant Episcopal Church, the late Rev. J. M. 
Manning, D. D., of the New Old South Congregational 
Church, the Rev. J. B. Dunn, of the Columbus 
Avenue Presbyterian Church, and the Rev. W. F. 
Mallalieu, D. D., of the Bromfield Street Methodist 
Episcopal Church. The pastor made the following 



The People s Church. 



xvii 



declarations, concerning the purpose and the plan of 
the new church : "ft is to be a free church. No dis- 
tinctions of class are to be allowed between the pul- 
pit and the door. Money must not make them, and 
favor must not reveal them. // is to be a People s 
Church. There will probably be no preaching from 
the pulpit in an unknown tongue. But the doors of 
the building shall be open to the inhabitants of every 
land. There will be no argument under its roof 
against any man because he is an Irishman or an 
African. The little upper attic pews, where the 
colored man has so long leaned over to see the white 
man woiship, will be brought down in the broad 
aisle, and the black and white will be invited to drink 
from the same sacramental goblet, and when they so 
select, will be permitted to join their fortunes in 
matrimonial vows at the church altar. That all the 
people may see equally well, and hear equally well, 
it will be amphitheatrically seated. This may not 
be perfectly ecclesiological ; but if the construction of 
the theatre is better adapted to a pure and simple 
worship than the ill-ventilated, right-angled par- 
allelograms through which our dim religious light 
drags its slow length along, we have not hesitated 
to say so, though the prince of the power of the air 
may have been in that building several nights in the 
week, during as many several weeks in the year." 
Thus was begun the first Christian church which has 
ventured to call itself the People's Church. 

But great movements projected in faith are not 
permitted to find an easy success. The flattering 
prospects of the new society soon opened on days of 
thick darkness and gloom, and the people were com- 
pelled to build the "wall, even in troublous times." 



xviii 



The People s Church. 



The financial straits into which the business of the 
city was thrown occasioned such distress, that one 
after another, the members of the board of trustees for 
the new church " failed" in business, until more than 
one half of them were compelled to withdraw from 
the responsibilities of their position, unable even to 
pay their own subscriptions when due. The only 
alternative left was for the pastor to assume the obli- 
gations of the trustees, and in some way find the 
money necessary to complete the building ; it was 
never an alternative to abandon the work. 

In the autumn of 1877 the society removed to the 
new chapel, which was opened for worship with a ser- 
mon preached on Sunday morning, October 21, by the 
Rev. Bishop Simpson. The Rev. J. A. M. Chapman, 
D. D., preached in the afternoon, and the Rev. 
Bishop R. S. Foster, D. D., LL. D., in the evening. 
It was then determined to go no further nor faster 
with the building than it was possible to pay for the 
work done. The main church, thus far completed, 
independent of the chapel and parsonage, has therefore 
been built under three separate contracts. The cor- 
nerstone was not laid until the third day of July, 
1882, when the pastors of the neighboring churches 
again assisted in the public ceremonies. The pastor 
again declared the purpose and plan of the church, and 
Mrs. Mary A. Livermore delivered an address upon 
"Woman and the Church." Short addresses were 
also delivered by the Rev. Dr. Mallalieu, then pre- 
siding elder of the Boston District, the Rev. E. B. 
Webb, D. D., of the Shawmut Congregational Church, 
the Rev. J. T. Jenifer, D. D., of the Charles Street 
African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Rev. A. J. 
Gordon, D. D., of the Clarendon Street Baptist 



The People s Church. 



xix 



Church, and the Rev. Bishop Foster. Letters of con- 
gratulation were read from Wendell Phillips, Hon. 
John D. Long Governor of Massachusetts, and the 
Rev. Phillips Brooks, who was then in Europe. The 
church progressed slowly as the money came in, and 
was only opened for worship on the morning of Sun- 
day, Feb. 10, 1884. As it had been seven years in 
building, it was fitting that seven days should be de- 
voted to the opening services. 

The methods honorably employed by the pastor in 
securing the money to complete the building, there can 
be no pleasure in recalling now. The hands and heart 
which made his success possible can do no more, now 
that they are at rest, than consecrate all that has 
been done. Why the path led this way, there is there- 
fore now no desire to know. The mystery veiling so 
great a sacrifice may be wise, lest other hearts, pass- 
ing this way later, might grow faint and weary with 
lesser labors and lighter cares. Many things will al- 
ways remain hard to be understood ; but they may 
have been necessary, to encourage some one to bear, 
even blindly, what may seem unnecessary to be borne, 
in accomplishing a work of faith and love. There 
were friends who often mistook faith for rashness and 
haste, and help was doubtless withheld because it was 
believed that the undertaking must inevitably fail. 
The "wildness" of the first appeal in behalf of the 
People's Church, it is fair to assume, was measured by 
the price which was charged for its insertion in the 
religious press. At one time the pastors of all the 
Methodist churches in the city and suburbs, with a 
layman from each church also, were called together 
in Boston to oppose the projected work. At another 
time a council, of ministers only, came together to 



XX 



The People s Church, 



disapprove of the proposed church. Then the pastor, 
at the suggestion of one of the chief pastors of the de- 
nomination, was invited to a meeting of laymen on still 
another occasion, to hear predictions against his suc- 
cess; and he was then and there advised to sell the 
land on which the main church now stands, and with 
the money received, pay for the chapel and parsonage, 
and be content. And it has long been forgotten that 
the New England Conference, of which the pastor 
was and is a member, by a solemn vote, once refused, 
and at a time when his circumstances were most 
pinching and threatening, to grant him any help or 
support. But " better is the end of a thing than the 
beginning thereof," 



SUNDAY MORNING. 



CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH. 



The Rev. Bishop MATTHEW SIMPSON, D.D., LL.D, 



CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH. 



" For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given : and his name 
shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Ever- 
lasting Father, The Prince of Peace." — Isaiah ix. 6. 

The spirit of prophecy is a testimony to Jesus ; and 
whether the prophecy refers to the rise and fall of 
empires, to the bringing about of peculiar events, or 
to the personal work and kingdom of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, it is still a testimony to Him. And the verse 
I have read is one especially descriptive of His per- 
sonal character and work, not only in His stay on 
earth, but in the duration of His kingdom even to the 
end of time. Nearly seven hundred and fifty years 
before the birth of Christ, the prophet Isaiah had this 
grand vision. He had been looking at the desolation 
of Israel. He had seen the people carried into cap- 
tivity, and but a remnant remaining. They were 
sitting in darkness. Sorrow was depicted on every 
face, and ruin was written all around them. But he 
beholds a light breaking, a joy coming, the people 
rejoicing as in time of harvest, and he seems to ask, 
What makes this change ? To make such an over- 
turning and changing in society we might expect the 
rising of armies, the organization of forces, the dis- 
play of great power among men ; but there is none 
of these. He sees the change coming slowly, grad- 
ually ; and then he makes the contrast, that " every 



4 



•The People s Church Pulpit. 



conflict of the warrior is with confused noise, and 
with garments rolled in blood, but this shall be with 
burning and fuel of fire." Instead of hearing the 
clash of arms and the confusion of war, he seems to 
stand away out, as on the edge of a prairie. Some 
spark from a passing locomotive, possibly, falls upon 
the dry grass ; a little flame is seen. It would be 
easy, at first, to put it out with a little water from 
the brook, but it spreads ; it extends on all sides, it 
spreads on and on, it is " with burning and fuel of 
fire," and in its way it seems to gain strength and 
force by its very progress. So he sees this Christian 
system coming, not by the force of men, not by the 
clash of arms, but as " with burning and fuel of fire ; " 
commencing small, and spreading on and on with all 
the force of an increasing flame, and then he says, 
" For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given." 

I suppose, really, that the passage might be ren- 
dered, just as accurately, " For unto us the Child is 
born, unto us the Son is given, and the government 
shall be upon his shoulders." The Child had been 
prophesied as coming. When man fell, the promise 
was that the seed of the woman should bruise the 
.serpent's head; and when Eve received her firstborn 
she called him Cain, for she said, " I have gotten a 
man from the Lord," — or, as we may render it, "got- 
ten the man from the Lord." That is, she supposed 
him to be the promised Child that was to be the great 
deliverer. But sorrowing she went down to her 
grave, without seeing this deliverer. And the ages 
passed on, and Me did not come. I have sometimes 
wondered what the host in heaven, the saved by faith 
through His promises, must have thought of the prog- 
ress of time and the great delay. But every now 



Christ and His Church. 



5 



and then the voice spake out, " Lo, I come ; m the 
volume of the book it is written of me." The ages 
passed, and still there was no deliverer. Prophets 
and kings desired it long, and died without the sight. 
But here the prophet stands in vision, and beholds 
the birth of the Saviour, and he cries out in joy, " For 
unto us the Child is born ! " Humanity receives its 
deliverer. And I suppose the prophet felt a little 
as did Simeon, when in his course of worship old age 
had come upon him, and the infant Saviour was 
brought into the temple, and he took Him in his arms 
and said, " Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart 
in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." It 
had been promised for four thousand years, and yet 
it was delayed ; but now the Child is born. 

Not only was the promise of the seed that should 
bruise the serpent's head given, but, in the develop- 
ment of prophecy, David beheld Him coming, and the 
voice of God proclaiming Him as His son, " Thou art 
my Son, this day have I begotten Thee. Ask of me, 
and I shall give Thee the heathen for Thine inherit- 
ance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy 
possession." 

From the first promise to the last promise of the 
Son, it was said that He should be the great Gov- 
ernor, — " Unto us a Son is given, and the government 
shall be upon His shoulders," — alluding to the insig- 
nia of government that implies the show of authority. 
The Son prophesied in the Psalms was now come, 
and the government of the universe should be on His 
shoulders. The thought of the government or king 
is a common one throughout the Scriptures, and 
when Jesus hung on the cross, the inscription His 
enemies placed over His head was, " King of the 



6 



The People s Church Pulpit. 



Jews." But He was not the King of the Jews merely, 
He was the King of the universe. "Ask of me, and 
I shall give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, 
and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy posses- 
sion." So the prophet saw this grand scene, and 
made this sublime expression. 

As he gazes on this scene, he beholds the life of 
Christ, and also the great work following. For this 
passage is not confined to the stay of Christ on earth, 
and these attributes, as I understand them, apply to 
the development of the church as well as to the life 
of Christ. It commences, " Unto us a Child is born," 
but it ends, not merely with the words, " Prince of 
Peace," which I have quoted, but with the following 
words, " Of the increase of His government and peace 
there shall be no end. " It sweeps away into coming- 
time, away down the long vista, covering not merely 
the life of Christ on earth, but the duration of the 
church which He came to establish. And so I under- 
stand these expressions as referring to himself, in tnis 
passage, and also having some kind of connection 
with the development of his coming church. "His 
name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the 
Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of 
Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace 
there shall be no end." These expressions, I take it, 
are entirely distinct ; and yet they mark, to a certain 
extent, successive stages blended together in the 
life of Christ, blended together in the progress of the 
church to some extent, and marking the course of 
development which the church was to have in all 
coming time. 

The first grand characteristic here of the Saviour, 
as seen by the prophet, was " Wonderful." He was 



Christ and His Church. 



7 



a wonderful person. The great object was to attract 
attention, to call the world to behold the Saviour 
which God had given to man. And so the world 
was to be startled by the wonderful appearance, the 
wonderful actions, the wonderful results, as applied 
to the life of Christ. How true was this description ! 
Names were given, anciently, from some character- 
istics. Men were not named arbitrarily then, as 
they are to-day with us. For instance, Plato was 
not called originally by that name ; but it is sup- 
posed that it was given him from the fact of his 
broad shoulders. One of the Scipios was called 
Africanus, from his successful campaign in Africa. 
Moses was named from his being drawn out of the 
water. And so Christ is called wonderful from His 
characteristics. Think of His birth ! What a won- 
derful thing to come at the time, of the family, and in 
the place, which prophets had foreseen for thousands 
of years before ! He came just as the world was ex- 
pecting, from the light of prophecy, the appearance 
of some wonderful personage. And He came in a 
wonderful manner. How wonderful to be born in a 
manger, and yet to attract the notice of heaven ! 
The stars to stand over Him, angels to open the 
doors of heaven and come down to sing to Him, and 
the host of heaven, and the old patriarchs, who had 
been watching for the appearance of Christ, to come 
and join with angels in the song, " Glory to God in 
the highest, on earth peace, good will toward men ! " It 
was wonderful, and it was said of Mary that she " hid 
these things in her heart." Then, again, His actions 
were wonderful. Behold Him as a man. How won- 
derful to open the eyes of the blind, unstop the ears 
of the deaf, heal the sick, raise the dead ! Follow 



8 



The People s Church Pulpit. 



Him to the cross, and how wonderful ! He expires 
on the cross ; and the heavens sympathize, the sun is 
darkened, the earth is moved to its centre. On the 
third morning the grave is opened, and He rises tri- 
umphant. He was wonderful in everything from 
His birth, through His life, to His death, and in His 
resurrection. 

And so the Christian church, in its formation and 
in its early history, was wonderful. When the 
disciples met together after the resurrection of 
Christ, it was wonderful when the doors were shut, 
and Christ appeared among them, and breathed upon 
them, and said, " Receive ye the Holy Ghost ! " When 
they met on the day of Pentecost, and the divine 
power came down on them from on high, and they 
spake in the various babbling tongues of earth, how 
wonderful ! And so all along through the early 
history of the church. I cannot stop to specify, and 
yet the attractions of men to the early church were 
through the wonderful acts. The apostles were put 
in prison : by some supernatural power the doors 
were opened. Look at the supernatural power at- 
tending their ministrations. They had the power to 
work miracles. Handkerchiefs taken from their 
bodies were made the means of healing the sick. 
The very shadow of Peter passing on the street was 
made the means of healing the sick upon whom it 
fell. In our own times, revivals of religion occur ; 
they attract attention. Here is a man wicked, de- 
praved, sensual, profane : he is changed into a vir- 
tuous, pure, and holy citizen, and it attracts great 
attention. The existence of the revival, what you 
term the excitement connected with it, and the won- 
derful scenes that have marked these revivals in 



Christ and His Church. 



9 



different ages of the church, all indicate the presence 
of Christ, and are given for the purpose of attracting 
the attention of men. So Christianity has its won- 
derful influence, as well as the personal life of Christ. 
As He was called Wonderful, so these wonderful 
events occur from time to time, and they challenge 
the attention of the world, and seem to be a voice of 
God to the sons of men. 

But in the life of Christ, as in the history of the 
church, the stage of the wonderful passes by, and 
Christ appears as the Counsellor. He had wisdom 
such as no man possessed before. He spake as 
never man spake; He spake as one having authority 
on all subjects of earth and of heaven ; He gave light 
whenever He spoke to those around Him. So the 
church in its stage follows as counsellor. It is a 
teacher. The second stage of the church opens 
schools, seminaries, colleges, universities. It edu- 
cates the people in science, in art, in literature. If 
you look at the history of the church from the begin- 
ning, you will see that it has taken an interest in the 
development of man's intellect. Even in the dark ages, 
dark as was the church, the home of science and 
literature was in her bosom. And now, as we look 
over the face of the earth, the schools of the world, 
the inventions of the world, the literature of the 
world, is found just where Christianity is found. Go 
outside, go into heathenism, go into Mohammedan- 
ism, and how feeble the representatives of intellectual 
culture ! There may be a few schools here and there 
about a temple or a mosque, but the mass of the 
people sit in darkness ; but wherever Christianity 
prevails, universal education is sought for, and an 



10 



The People s Church Pulpit. 



effort is made to train up the children in knowledge 
and in science. The church is the counsellor. 

As might be expected from attracting the attention 
of men, and from the diffusion of knowledge and wis- 
dom, follows an age of power. Christ was called the 
mighty God ; that is, He had the attributes of 
Divinity. And how He manifested them ! The ele- 
ments obeyed Him. He was on the little ship, and 
He hushed the winds, the storms, the raging billows. 
He had power to use for His purposes all the ele- 
ments of nature. He feeds five thousand people 
with a loaf ; a fish is made to feed thousands, also. 
He has power over all matter ; He has power over 
all animals ; He is the mighty God. 

And it seems to me that this manifestation of His 
power was a kind of prophetic development of what 
should be. I remember, when a boy, I used to 
wonder why Christ spent so much time on a little 
lake, the little Sea of Galilee, a little sheet of water ; 
why the account is given of His being in the boat 
and vessel ; why the storms were hushed. I would 
have thought of Him as being in the temple, teaching 
a vast multitude, and why was He on a little lake ? 
I see in it a prophetic outlook of what was to be. 
He looked away into the future ages. Commerce 
was to embrace the ends of the earth ; men were to 
go down to the sea ; the ends of the earth were to be 
connected together in business. Christ went down 
on the sea, as if to teach men that He was the Lord 
of the ocean, and that by human power travel on the 
ocean was to be made as safe and easy as on the 
land. He seemed to hold in His hand all the issues 
of the coining commerce of the world, and to see the 



Christ and His Church. 



1 1 



ends of the world joined together. So He was there 
on the little lake, the God of the sea as well as of 
the land. 

Then, again, not only is commerce power, but 
money is power. Christ directs His disciples, when 
they had nothing, to go to the water and catch a fish, 
and they should find the money necessary for tribute. 
This was but a prophetic development of what was to 
be. He was Lord of the money. He had placed the 
silver and gold in the earth. He knows where, in 
these vast mountains and on these vast plains, the 
treasure is concealed, and just when the church shall 
need it for the purpose of the conversion of the world 
and the establishment of His government. Those 
mountains shall be uncovered, those valleys shall be 
brought into light, and the money of the world is to 
be found just where and when the church, or human- 
ity, civilized and Christianized, shall need it for the 
carrying out of God's great purposes. The money of 
the world to-day is as much under the control of 
Christ as when He sent the apostle down to catch 
the fish, that out of it might be found the money to 
pay the tribute. The control of all agencies is his. 
He could comfort and relieve the sorrows of the 
world, bring back the son to the widow, bring back 
the daughter to the parent, bring up the son for the 
sisters, showing his power over life and over death, 
He was the mighty God. 

Now, the church, in the age following the estab- 
lishment of the schools, gains power. Knowledge is 
power, and that which spreadeth knowledge, controls, 
and so the church becomes powerful in its next 
stage. After the establishment of schools came the 
accumulation of wealth, and aggregation of all the 



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The People s Church Pulpit. 



elements of power everywhere. Now, we look over 
the earth, and what do we see ? All the commerce 
of the world, with a little exception, all the wealth of 
the world, all the knowledge of the world, is aggre- 
gated among Christian nations. If there were to be 
a contest to-day among the nations of the earth, no 
civilized nation, scarcely, dreads the pagan power. 
Combine the pagan powers of the earth, and this 
country would not fear them all. If you select three 
or four of the leading Christian nations of the earth, 
they hold to-day the power of the world, and God is 
giving them, even in territory, the government of 
this earth. So Christianity is becoming an engine 
of great power. 

There follows from this another step, — " The ever- 
lasting Father." Power may be used for very iniqui- 
tous purposes. Knowledge and power may be used 
to the detriment of man as well as to his benefit, 
but it is not so with Christianity ; its spirit is con- 
stantly pure, elevating. In the olden time, when the 
children of Israel rebelled, fire came clown from 
heaven and destroyed them. But in the time of 
Christ, he said to his disciples, when they wished for 
fire to come down, " Ye know not what manner of 
spirit ye are of; Christ came to save, and not to 
destroy" ; and that coming turned all the powers of 
this world and all the knowledge of this earth to the 
benefit of men. And so he is called the everlasting 
Father. I am aware that very many have used this 
term as signifying the eternity of the Son of God, the 
everlasting Father. I believe that doctrine with all 
my heart, but I do not believe this passage properly 
refers to that. By the everlasting Father I under- 
stand that clement of universal benevolence, of sym- 



Christ and His Church. 



13 



pathy, — the father who never ceases to be a father. 
A father, affectionate, trains the child, cares for it, 
watches over it ; but there may come a time when a 
father may drive away a prodigal son ; his patience 
is exhausted, his spirit of fatherhood seems to have 
failed, and he ceases to be, in the manifestation, a 
father. But how is it with the mother ? How differ- 
ent with her ! I have known a few cases in which 
prodigal sons have been turned from home, — the pa- 
tience of fathers has been exhausted ; but I never 
knew a case in which a mother ceased to care for 
her prodigal boy, and I never knew a case where, 
if the prodigal boy could get by some means 
to his home, even if he came in by the back 
gate, the mother was not ready to throw her 
arms around him, and welcome him. A mother is a 
mother always. The father on earth may sometimes 
cease to be like a father, but Christ is the everlasting 
Father. Look at him in the manifestation of his love ; 
was there ever one approached him whom he did 
not receive and care for ? Oh ! how full that record 
reads, "And he healed them all" — not one sick 
man was turned away ; and we have no instance of 
any one approaching Christ whom he was not willing 
to receive. That attribute remains, and " He is able 
also to save them to the uttermost that come unto 
God by him." See him when he comes near the 
close of life. Behold still this everlasting affection. 
There are his murderers. There is the band that con- 
demned him, that drove those spikes through his 
hands and feet, that nailed him to the cross. He 
had power to have hurled them into ruin ; but no ; 
he bears with them all, and while his blood is flow- 
ing upon the cross, and he looks clown upon his mur 



14 The People s Church Pulpit. 

derers, he raises his eyes heavenward, and says, 
" Father, forgive them, for they know not what they 
do." His affection never wears out. He is the ever- 
lasting Father, and he cares for you and me, and it is 
on this very ground that we can approach him. H^ ; s 
the everlasting Father, the unwearying, the never- 
ceasing-to-be Father of all our race, and so you and I 
may go to him. And if there be a father here who has 
a prodigal son, give him" not up ; bear with him and 
try to bring him home, make one more effort for 
him. And if there is one of us who has felt a doubt 
about Christ's receiving us, and his willingness to 
save us, let us take heart and courage by this dec- 
laration, and let us go to him, and we shall find in 
him a perfect Saviour. Oh, my friends, to-day 
Christ yearns for every one of us, and there is no 
man so much wishes to be saved as Christ wishes to 
be his Saviour. 

Now, I see in the church the same attributes fol- 
lowing. The everlasting Father ! That is to yearn 
for humanity. The wisdom of the church, the power 
of the church, being secured, then there comes the 
age of benevolence, of Christian affection. Do we 
not see it around us ? How the church is yearning, 
seemingly, to do good ! Go into our cities, and see 
how the Christian women are building orphanages 
and homes for the aged, and schools for the poor, 
and institutions for the unfortunate, and hospitals 
for the suffering everywhere. It is the glory of our 
Christian land that it has this spirit of benevolence, 
and the wealth of the world is being taken foi its 
elevation. We scarcely open a paper in these days 
but we find that some one has given a donation or a 
legacy to some institution of learning, or to some 



Christ and His Church. 



15 



hospital, or to some institution established for the 
poor and the unfortunate. It is the church yearning 
to do good everywhere ; and if I am asked in what 
age of the world we are living in the development of 
the church, I answer I believe we are living to- 
day in the age of the everlasting Father. The 
church has had its wonderful period, and it has 
had its age of schools and power. — these flow into 
each other, and are not kept entirely distinct. We 
have advanced from the schools to the possession of 
the power of the world, and the money of the world, 
and influence of the world. These are in Christian 
circles very largely, and now we are coming to the 
age of its expenditure for the benefit of man, elevat- 
ing humanity everywhere. 

As I grow older, I see more and more of this spirit 
of Christ, as it seems to me, actively at work in the 
world, and passages of Scripture that I used to con- 
sider as being merely spiritual in their character, I 
have learned to consider as referring also to the 
material interests of the world. For instance, that 
wonderful passage where the Saviour says, " Come 
unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I 
will give you rest." I remember how touching it was 
to me in my own personal experience, and how I 
came to Jesus as I was, and found, as I believe, the 
fulfilment of that precious promise, " Come unto me, 
and I will give you rest." But as I look out on the 
world more widely, I behold the fulfilment of that in a 
sense still wider than the spiritual significance. And 
I call to mind the occasion when the words were 
spoken. Christ was one day near the Sea of Galilee. 
The people from Capernaum and Bethsaida, and 
other towns and cities, were there around him. He 



1 6 The Peoples Church Pulpit. 

nad been talking nearly all day. The disciples of 
John had come to him and brought a message from 
their master, and he had answered them, and then 
told the multitude about John himself, and suddenly 
he seems to stop and look around him. He sees the 
men coming home in the evening from their work, 
and they are bearing on their shoulders great bur- 
dens. I have seen them in Constantinople, I have 
seen them in Palestine, bearing burdens that seemed 
to me too great for human shoulders to bear. And 
the women were coming up from the valley below 
where the springs were, and they were carrying on 
their heads pitchers of water and bundles of fire- 
wood, that they were taking up to their cottages on 
the hill. The working people are oppressed with 
their burdens. Christ is standing there, a young 
man of from thirty to thirty-three years of age, and 
as he sees the laboring people coming up in the 
evening hour, he cries out, " Come unto me, all ye 
that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you 
rest." I have said to myself, how could a young 
man of thirty or thirty-three bear the burdens of the 
world, and what satisfaction was it for these people, 
all burdened and worn out, and weary with the toils 
and labors of the day, to be called upon by him to 
come unto him, upon his promise that he would give 
them rest ? If he had been a mere man, how prepos- 
terous ! He could not bear the burdens of the world. 
If he were God, I can understand how he might. 

And yet, I see in this the same kind of develop- 
ment to which I have been alluding. He spoke not 
merely for that age, or to those people, but through 
them to laboring humanity everywhere. " Come 
unto me." Now, as I look over the world, I do not 



Christ and His Church. 



17 



find men carrying those immense burdens on their 
backs ; I do not find women carrying pitchers of 
water on their heads. I do not find them, in Chris- 
tian countries, carrying these severe burdens ; and 
why is it, and how is it ? The principles of Christian- 
ity have enlightened, have strengthened, have elevated 
the world, and men have found out how to rule the 
powers of nature. God has given them power over 
nature ; and now the long train of railroad cars bears 
the burden, and the steam-engine raises the water 
and distributes it through all our buildings, and the 
lightning carries our messages, telephonic communi- 
cation substitutes the service of the messenger boys 
even, and we are coming to a period when the bur- 
dens of society are being borne, and Christ speaks to 
all the laboring population everywhere, and says, 
"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest." Christianity is giv- 
ing that rest, that time for thought, that time for cul- 
ture, that time for spiritual elevation which man 
needs, but which, without the gospel of Christ, is 
never given. And so Christ is the burden-bearer of 
the world. He is the everlasting Father in this 
sense, that he comes down to take the very burdens 
of toil from the shoulders of his children. Not in 
heathen countries do you find these inventions ; not 
in Mohammedan countries do you find this triumph 
over nature. It is only where Christ reigns among 
the people that intellects are emancipated, and man 
rises to be the lord of nature, and the governor of all 
the elements. 

So there is this yearning for humanity. And oh, 
how I am oftentimes pained when I find men trying 
to persuade the laboring men that Christ was not 



1 8 The People's CJiurck Pulpit. 

their friend, forming associations, and trying to lead 
men away from Christ ! I tell you, my brother in 
toil, Christ is the only burden-bearer of this world. 
He saves humanity, and leads it from its struggles 
and toils upward to peace, and rest, and joy. 

Then, again, consider how Christianity is stooping 
down to raise up the very poorest of the poor, and to 
elevate them. An incident came under my observa- 
tion, years ago, which I have not unfrequently used as 
an illustration of this. I was in a western city and was 
visiting a school, or rather an exhibition of a school for 
the education of imbeciles. A young man had con- 
ceived the idea that it was possible to educate idiotic 
children, perfect imbeciles. He went over to Europe 
to ascertain the best methods of teaching, the modes of 
instruction. He returned, and opened a school, not far 
from Philadelphia, for the purpose of educating idiotic 
children, — the first started in the country. After mak- 
ing experiments, he published a note requesting that 
the most imbecile child in all the land should be sent 
to him, and that he would test the possibility of edu- 
cating him. A number were sent to him, and he was 
engaged constantly ; but among others sent him, 
after he published this note, was a little boy of five 
years of age. It was so perfectly helpless it had 
never spoken, never chewed a hard substance, never 
seemed to recognize a single human being ; it had no 
power to turn itself over, it seemed like a mass of 
purely animate flesh. That was the child of five 
years, sent to this young man to be educated. He 
made various experiments, and failed for a long time 
to make any impression. Weary with the toil of 
teaching in the forenoon, he adopted the plan of going 
in about noon, and lying down on the parlor carpet 



Christ and His Church. 



19 



with the child beside him ; and, failing to reach its at- 
tention at all, he simply read aloud from a book, and 
he continued to do so daily for six months without 
ever gaining one look of apparent recognition from 
the child. One day, at the end of six months, he 
was very weary ; and, lying down beside the child, he 
did not read. Directly he discovered that the child 
was restless ; it was not able to turn over, but it 
could make slight motions ; it had never been able to 
raise its finger with apparent power, and yet it had 
some little power. The teacher thought to himself, 
the child misses the noise of my reading. Taking 
that idea, he got down very closely to the child, put 
his face almost to its hand, and noticed it was 
trying to move its fingers. He put his lips down 
very close, and the child, after various efforts, suc- 
ceeded at last in putting its finger on his lips, as 
much as to say, Make that noise again. The teacher 
said that from that moment he felt that he had that 
child. He commenced working with him, develop- 
ing its muscles by pressing upon them, and working 
in various patient ways. At the time when I saw 
him, five years after that, the boy stood on a platform, 
made a little address, named over the presidents of 
the United States in their proper order, told over 
little things in our national history, and appeared to 
be like a boy about five years of age. The teacher 
had worked with that boy till he had developed the 
little spark of intellect, and the little power that was 
in the child, and made it somewhat a power. I 
looked at him with perfect astonishment, and my 
heart was stirred, and I said to myself, Was there 
ever such a case ? Did ever any one before lie clown 
beside one for six months, trying to get one single 



20 



The People s Church Pulpit. 



look of recognition ? And I said, Surely, that teacher 
must have had the spirit of Christ. And then again I 
thought, Yes, there was One who did more than that 
when He lay down beside me for nearly twenty 
years, waiting for me to get my finger to his lips, and 
say, " Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." Oh, 
there was One who came from heaven to lay himself 
down beside us to gain our affection, and our feeling, 
and our regard, that he might elevate us and lift us 
up to heaven, there to reign among the glorified for- 
ever and ever ! He is the everlasting Father. And 
so Christianity is stooping to take hold of these very 
imbeciles, the lowest and the poorest and most 
wretched, everywhere. Oh ! where is there one that 
Christ is not searching for? To the lgpers that men 
call outcasts, and who are compelled to put their 
hands on their lips, and cry, " Unclean, unclean ! " 
Christ said, " I will, be thou clean." The harlots, 
the very outcasts of humanity, the very lowest of the 
low, Christ came to lift even them. Think of His 
unyielding, undying, unfailing love for humanity ! 

Then comes the last characteristic. He is the 
Prince of Peace. If the spirit of benevolence can be 
cultivated so that man shall yearn for man every- 
where, will not war cease, will not all strife be done 
away ? Is not the development of Christ as the 
Prince of Peace the natural outgrowth from all these 
other characteristics, and " of His government and 
peace there shall be no end." Already we are 
approaching that period. We have not reached it 
yet ; there are wars on earth, there is bloodshed, 
there is strife. But the age is coming ; it seems to 
me I can see the light striking the hilltop. What 
means all this effort for arbitration ? Difficulties that 



Christ and His Church, 



21 



fifty years ago would have plunged nations into war 
are now settled by arbitration : why shall not there 
be a time when all the difficulties of nations shall be 
settled as the difficulties of men are now, and then 
Christ shall reign the Prince of Peace. I think I see 
it coming when I look at the very words of Christ 
again in another place : " Go, tell John what ye see 
and hear. The blind see, the deaf hear, the lame 
walk, the dead are raised, and the poor have the gos- 
pel preached unto them." The spirit of the whole 
missionary cause for the world is wrapped up in that 
sentence, " The poor have the gospel preached unto 
them." There is the spirit put into Christ's people 
everywhere, to reach the uttermost bounds of crea- 
tion, and carry to the ends of the world the name of 
Christ. Out of that spirit will come peace. If we 
try to save every man on earth, we will not engage 
in war ; strife will be done away ; discord will not 
reign ; the sword will be beaten into the ploughshare, 
and Christ shall reign triumphant, the Prince of Peace 
forever. Oh ! what a joyful vision comes to us as we 
join to-day with the prophet in saying, "Unto 
Child is born, unto us a Son is given." Not to any 
one family, not to any one race, not to any one class, 
"unto us." How Christ loved to say, not, " I am the 
Son of Mary," not, " I am the Son of a Jew," but, " I 
am the Son of man " ! "Whom do men say that I, the 
Son of man, am ? " He was the Son of humanity. 
He came to bless us all, and in the course of the devel- 
opment of the great kingdom He came to establish 
we shall have all these successive steps of grandeur 
and of glory, till the world shall be caught up to be 
on the very verge of heaven. I do not know what 
shall be. I do not understand much that is written 



22 



The Peoples Church Pulpit 



in the Book of Revelation, but I do see in it some 
grand pictures. You remember that at the opening 
of it, there comes in a white horse. Then the curtain 
falls, and there are earthquakes, fire, and blood, the 
sun is darkened, the moon is turned into blood, the 
stars fall, there is convulsion after convulsion, but in 
the end the heaven is opened again, and there comes 
one riding on a white horse, and he is followed by a 
hundred and forty and four thousand in white gar- 
ments, and a great multitude beside that no man can 
number, and the voice of which is heard, and on the 
heavens is written the name, "King of kings and 
Lord of lords, who reigns triumphant." I see this 
going on in the world. There have been earthquakes 
and bloodshed, changes of power, empires overthrown, 
and I do not know the changes which must yet come 
before the end ; but I do know that Christ shall come 
in glory, and the host of heaven with him, and the 
song shall go up, "Hallelujah! the Lord God omnip- 
otent reigneth." He will come ; Christ shall reign, 
as the prophets have said. 

And now, to-day, Christian people, we rejoice in 
the opening of this temple ; we rejoice in the assem- 
bling of this great multitude. I see in this the out- 
growth of that period I have been designing to trace. 
You have had remarkable ages of Christianity, and 
have passed on to still greater development. We see 
Christian schools and institutions multiplying all 
around us. We find the Christian church possessing 
much of the power of this world, Christian people 
really controlling the world. We see how these insti- 
tutions of benevolence are established, and this going 
out of the heart to try to reach all the people, every- 
where. You have been giving your time, the pastor 



Christ and His Church. 



23 



of this church has been giving his effort, you have 
been giving your means, to erect this large building, 
and it is to be a people's church. It is to be for every 
one who shall come here, that they may find the way 
to Christ, and thus the way to peace and heaven. 
May God bless this enterprise, and may multitudes 
by it be led to the cross of Christ ! 



SUNDAY AFTERNOON. 



THE CHURCH FOR THE TIMES. 



The Kev. JOSKPH COOK. 



% 



THE CHURCH FOR THE TIMES. 



" Go in between the wheels, even under the cherub, and fill thine 
hand with coals of fire from between the cherubim, and scatter them 
over the city." — Ezekiel x : 2. 

It is the business of the Church to echo God. Any 
church which does this will be heard around the 
world. Not the man for the times, but the church 
for the times, is the proper rallying cry of reform. 
No one man will ever save the world. A combina- 
tion of aggressive, omnipresent churches may. 

If the business of the Church be to echo God, we 
must inquire, What are the latest syllables in His 
providential voice? What is God saying? Let me 
open the freshest portions of the yet unrolling scroll 
of the book of the Acts of the Apostles, and read 
a few suggestive verses. 

1. In 1800 the population of the United States was 
5,300,000. There were then between three and 
four millions of professing Christians in evangelical 
churches, or one in fifteen of the whole population ; 
Romanists not counted. 

2. There are now 50,000,000 of people in the 
United States, and 10,000,000 Protestant Church 
members in the evangelical bodies, or one in five of 
the whole population. 

3. Our population has increased, since 1800, nine 
times. The number of professing Christians in 
evangelical denominations has increased twenty- 
seven times. 

27 



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The People s Church Pulpti. 



4. While there has been an increase in the evangel- 
ical denominations, the unevangelical have decreased. 
The Universalists report in 1879 three hundred and 
fourteen less congregations than they reported in 
i860. A similar decrease is reported in Unitarian 
religious bodies. In New England the number of 
Universalist congregations in 1879 -was one hundred 
and eighty-two less than in i860. 

5. In the beginning of the century $250,000 
only were expended in all Christendom for mis- 
sions; now there are expended annually, for that 
purpose, $6,250,000. 

6. At the beginning of the century there were only 
fifty translations of the Scriptures ; now there are 
three hundred and eight. 

7. There are now printed and in circulation Bibles 
enough to make one copy for every ten persons on 
the face of the earth. 

8. It is well known to the closest students of the 
aggressive movements of Christianity that it is within 
the power of the church to bring a knowledge of the 
gospel, by the living voice or by the printed page, 
before the close of another quarter of a century, to 
every human being. 

Such is the voice of God in current history. . And 
can a craven, apologetic, whining church echo these 
thunders of the upper azure through which God calls 
us to courage ? We say the days are dark ; and so 
they are, for all our days are days of mortals. We 
are in our low estate, and the earth has fallen ; but as 
surely as there bursts up in human nature an irre- 
pressible belief that there is a Judge of the world, 
and that lie will do right, so there bursts up in man's 
constitution a justification of the belief that in the 



The Church for the Times. 



29 



end the Judge of all the earth will cause His kingdom 
to come, and His will to be done here as in heaven. 

There is not as much infidelity in the world now as 
there has been in many recent ages. But it expresses 
itself more, for cheap expression is possible. We are 
moving rapidly onward in the spread of democratic 
institutions. The people are coming into power; 
everybody thinks for himself. In a transitional period 
a large amount of crudity must be expected. We 
must, of course, allow infidelity to talk itself out. 
When it advocates monstrosities in morals, as it not 
infrequently does in this country ; when it makes 
itself a pettifogger for the repeal of righteous laws 
that secure the purity oi the mails ; when it sets up 
as a hero and a martyr an imprisoned felon, convicted 
of abusing the privileges of the people ; when infi- 
delity thus talks itself into evil odor, we may be thank- 
ful that the press is in its hands, and that expression 
is free and cheap. A large part of American organ- 
ized infidelity brings its liberal leagues to the support 
of a ghastly propaganda sm of immorality. We must 
not think, because infidelity is louder than ever before, 
and has perhaps a more efficient organization of a 
popular kind than it has ever had before, that it is 
stronger on these accounts. Thomas Paine was once 
fifty times the power in the United States he is 
to-day. The crudity of a transitional state must not 
alarm us, face to face with the majestic fact that we 
now have one church-member in every five of the 
population, where eighty years ago we had only one 
in fifteen. 

Let us rejoice in all that God is doing to inspire 
men to free investigation of His works. It is the 
business of the Church to-day to echo God, whether 



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The People's Church Pulpit. 



he speaks in religious history or in science. This age 
loves clear ideas. The pouring out upon the nations 
of a desire for scientific knowledge is a Pentecost 
from on high, as truly as was the one witnessed of old 
in the holy city. We must echo God, when He speaks 
in the established truths of physical sciences ; but 
when men, confining themselves to those sciences 
merely, hold up a pinched, arrogant physicism as the 
whole of human knowledge, and when, as the years 
pass, those partialists and abnormalists become more 
and more ridiculous to the eye of candid science 
itself, we must hear and echo what God is saying in 
these facts also. God is inspiring science to research ; 
and possibly the very arrogance of science maybe one 
of the means by which God is to show us that physi- 
cism, or the study of mere matter, can never be the 
whole of the research to which He prompts. God 
is showing us that we must have Him, or something 
above man's spirit, something above matter not only, 
but above the highest there is in man's own soul, to 
satisfy that soul itself. All the opposition of science, 
falsely so called, is itself only a part of the foam before 
the advancing ship of a Christian civilization. The 
more loudly that hissing spray sneers at the rushing 
vessel, the more I am inclined to listen for the laughter 
of the gods at the spray. It was written of old, The 
fool hath said in his heart that there is no God. The 
fact now is that the fool hath said in the newspapers 
that there is no God. In these latest days God is 
making himself known through His Works as well as 
through His Word. He will laugh at us if we do 
not listen to what He says in nature, and He will 
have in derision the men who study nature, if they 
do not listen to what He has said in His Word. 



The Church for the Times. 



The facts which I have recited to you out of 
the modern Acts of the Apostles are enough to 
make the Church courageous in the presence of all 
her foes. 

Let me ask first, What are to be the doctrines 
of the church of the times ? And next, What are 
to be the deeds ? 

The church for the times will know how to 
answer the question, " What must I do to be 
saved ? " It will emphasize first, midst, last, in all 
its teachings, the doctrines of the New Birth and 
of the Atonement. 

Axiomatic theology is a system of religious truth 
based on absolutely self-evident propositions. I do 
not undervalue proof-texts out of the Bible ; indeed, 
I value that Book because it is full of axiomatic the- 
ology. Its cans and its cannots, its musts and its 
must nots, are all appeals to the very nature of 
things. But infidelity itself respects self-evident 
propositions. 

Horace Bushnell was a sceptic when he was in col- 
lege ; but he had had an excellent early education in 
religion. I hope he knew something of vital piety ; 
but after leaving college he became an editor in New 
York City, and was immersed in politics. In many 
ways his mind was secularized and disintOned ; be- 
sides, he was passing into that state of culture 
where a man can raise more questions than he can 
answer, and at last he came to doubt everything ; 
he hardly knew whether there is or is not a God. 
Pacing to and fro in his room once while a re- 
vival was in progress in Yale College, and when 
nearly every teacher there had taken part in bring- 
ing the students into religious light, Bushnell was 



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bewailing the darkness of his soul. He was tossed 
to and fro on an ocean over which midnight hung. 
Finally he said to himself : " There is at least one 
thing I believe and have never doubted, — there is a 
distinction between right and wrong." There he 
placed his foot on a perfectly self-evident proposi- 
tion ; there he took his position on one of the facts 
of axiomatic theology ; there he planted himself 
upon a great truth, which is absolutely self-evident 
to the moral sense. One of the intuitions of con- 
science is that there is a distinction between right 
and wrong. "Very well," said Bushnell, in his 
solitude, " have I ever yielded my will to my belief 
on this point ? I know there is a distinction be- 
tween right and wrong, but have I ever chosen the 
right with my whole soul ? Have I ever thrown 
myself over the line between the right and the 
wrong, with my entire power of will, and chosen 
irreversibly, gladly, affectionately, the right ? " He 
never had. In his solitude he knelt down on that 
one fragment of rock in the midst of a yeasting 
sea. There he consecrated himself to follow all the 
little light he had, and to follow it gladly. In 
the midst of the ocean and midnight, during his 
prayer, the windows of the blackness were opened. 
An Oriental writer would say, the celestial dove de- 
scended upon him. What Bushnell says is, that when 
he yielded himself utterly to conscience, there came 
into his soul a sense of God. He had a star in his heart. 
He knew that there is a Judge of the world, and 
that the Judge of the world will do right. He gave 
himself up utterly to the Father of spirits. The re- 
sult was that doubt as to God's existence, doubt as to 
God's willingness to help all who yield to Him, doubt 



The Church for the Times. 



33 



of the fundamental religious verity that God is, and is 
a hearer of those who worship Him in spirit and in 
truth, fled from him at once and forever. This is 
axiomatic theology. 

A certain soul, with which I have a better acquain- 
tance than with any other human spirit, was once 
rocked on dark, unresting seas. At last this vexed 
mariner planted his feet, not on one reef of self-evident 
truth, but on several. He perceived the axiomatic 
certainty of the facts that a man must really love 
what God loves, and hate what God hates, or he 
cannot be at peace in His presence ; must abso- 
lutely have similarity of feeling with God, or the uni- 
verse will be against him ; must, in short, have the 
new birth, or there can be no harmony between his 
faculties, nor between his soul and the rest of the 
universe. He came also upon the perfectly self-evi- 
dent truth that the past cannot be erased, that a 
record of sin, once made, cannot be blotted out even 
by Omnipotence. It may be screened, but any 
amount of effort on man's part to change the- past is 
impotent. Omnipotence itself cannot make what 
has been not to have been. And so the necessity 
not only of a new birth, but of the atonement, was 
made clear. Yielding utterly to what these self-evi- 
dent truths taught, there came a star into his soul. 
There came into it a readiness to receive the Bible 
on historic evidence, and on the inner witness of the 
Spirit within its pages. From that hour, however 
the sea has lashed the reefs, however the proud ocean 
has endeavored at times to overtop their adamantine 
barriers, there has been for that soul only peace in 
the mornings and the midnights, only peace in the 
sunshine and in the storm. Where that soul found 



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The People s Church Pulpit. 



peace in life, it expects to find it in death, and beyond 
death. 

My first thought, then, as to the doctrines of the 
church for the times is, that they may be very well 
begun, in this age of unrest, with axiomatic theology. 
That is a phrase on which I love to insist, because it 
is comprehensible everywhere. Men know what self- 
evident truths mean. You can prove the necessity 
of the new birth, and of the atonement, by appeals to 
the cans and cannots of the nature of things. Yes, 
all you who are here to-day, and who have not learned 
similarity of feeling with God, I believe, must learn 
it, or it will be ill with you until you do. As thor- 
oughly as I exist, I believe that, without the love of 
what God loves, and the hate of what God hates, none 
of you can be at peace in this world, or in the next ; 
and that the longer you live in dissimilarity of feeling 
with Him, the longer you are likely thus to live. 
The tendency of character to a final permanence is 
one of the facts of science. Let the church for the 
times cry aloud and spare not in defence of the doc- 
trine that whoever has not learned to love what God 
loves, and hate what God hates, has all the stars in 
the universe fighting against him. If it were not so, 
we could not love our God. Were God to make it 
possible for unholiness to possess blessedness, we 
could not worship Him. 

While we teach the efficiency of natural theology, 
we must deny its sufficiency. If we had only natural 
theology in the world, we should be walking, even in 
this late age, in little better than the light Plato had, 
or than that which illumed the path of Socrates. End- 
less as the waves of the sea would be the systems of 
philosophy, if we had not the steady sun and moon of 



The Church for tJie Times. 



35 



revelation above the ocean, to lift natural theology into 
tides accordant with the revealed attractions. The 
Biblical doctrines of the new birth, of the atonement, 
and of eternal judgment, are to be inculcated by the 
church for the times, no matter how the spirit of a 
special time protests against the spirit of all times. 
Matthew Arnold says that the Zeit-Geist, or spirit of 
the time, is against certain forms of Christianity; 
but Richter used to say that the Ewigkeit-Geist, or 
the spirit of eternity, overpowers the Zeit-Geist, the 
spirit of the day. The church for the times will 
listen to the voice of the spirit of eternity, and not to 
that of the spirit of the day. 

I am very little moved by any man's liberalistic 
ease of eternal hope, if I find that this is the soft 
creed of the seaside summer resort, and of fashion- 
able aristocratic circles, and has been made unbiblical 
and unscientific by the spirit of the day, and not by 
the spirit of eternity. I want the stern, masculine 
ages to teach me how to live, for I do not expect to 
place my head when I die in the Delilah's lap of any 
fashionable theology. I want God's unflinching truth 
to rule my faith and practice, for I must soon go out 
of the world, and I wish to go in peace. The great 
current fact of our times, and of all times, is that 
men are going out of the world as fast as the clock 
ticks. I want a theology by which men can die at 
peace in God's sight, and not merely a theology by 
which they can live at peace in man's sight. 

The church for the times will teach that 
the Holy Spirit is a present Christ ; that our 
Lord not only was, but is ; that He is one with God ; 
that His name is Emmanuel; that He hath yet 
many things to say to us, and that He is saying 



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The People s Church Pulpit. 



them now. I will not touch on what, in Horace 
Bushnell's forty-fifth year, was a revelation to him, — 
that Christ is the form of the soul, and that just as a 
cloud lies in the air, and takes its form from the invis- 
ible current above it, so the human spirit that is 
Christ's lies in His Spirit, which is moving in human 
history, and that the churches that are His, and are 
flexible under His influences, take their form from 
His breathing upon them. Since God is the form of 
the soul, He is the form of the church, not Method- 
ism, not Episcopacy, not Congregationalism, but the 
church of God, the church of the living God. 

The church for the times will ascend all the heights 
of Biblical and scientific truth. If she is not dis- 
obedient to the heavenly vision which she will see as 
she paces to and fro there, what will be the deeds of 
the church for the times ? 

Let me make a protest at the beginning against 
your fear of innovation. John Wesley introduced 
into church methods one or two new, practical meas- 
ures, which have turned out to be of extremely great 
usefulness in the world. For instance, he for the 
first time taught Christian believers to come together 
in what are now called class meetings, and reveal the 
secrets of their hearts to each other, and light the 
flame of each other's spiritual torches. The organ- 
ization he formed he intended to be only a subordi- 
nate society within the Church of England. It grew 
into a church rather against his will. Such was the 
power of these new methods to produce a new spirit. 
The new methods made Methodists. Instead of 
forming a new body, which would not separate from 
the old mass of the established Church of England, 
Wesley found he had created a new denomination 



The Church for the Times. 



37 



The power of his methods did this. You will find 
that machinery is worthless without the Divine 
Spirit, but methods which happen to accord with 
the Biblical spirit, produce the Biblical spirit. 

I am no innovator. I shall recommend no meth- 
ods of startling divergence from those already 
known, and I am no opponent of the generally ac- 
cepted methods which I cannot pause to discuss. 
The whole field of the Sabbath school, I must 
leave to hands which are expert in that depart- 
ment, — Robert Raikes, 1780, J. H.Vincent, 1880. 
Fortunate men, archbishops of youth, let us leave 
to them and their assistants the leadership of re- 
form in the department of the religious instruction 
of the young. 

I wish to recommend one or two measures, which 
have long dwelt in my mind as possessing great 
practical value, and which are not yet adopted by the 
church at large. 

In the first place, allow me to say that among the 
methods of the church for the times, I would give a 
high rank to what many churches have adopted for a 
few weeks each year, and what I would have adopted 
for at least two months in each year, namely, con- 
versation meetings between church-members and the 
unconverted. It was once the joy of my life to assist 
evangelists of the calm and fervent Edwardean type, 
and I had that joy for three or five years. I have 
studied very closely the methods of some of the cool- 
est and most Biblical evangelists the land contains. 
There is no one method from which I have seen 
better fruits, both for the church and for the uncon- 
verted, than the closing of devotional meetings of the 
ordinary kind with what I call conversation meetings. 



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The People s Church Pulpit. 



You have a prayer meeting running through half an 
hour, and at the end of it sing a hymn. Let the 
leader announce that all who wish to go can then 
do so ; but that all who are willing to stay fifteen 
minutes for conversation with the Christians present 
on personal religion, are requested to remain. Perhaps 
at the first meeting not five will remain from the un- 
converted class ; but, if you converse properly with 
those five, they are likely to remain again, and bring 
their friends, and you will have fifty in a month. 
What will be the effect of conversing with them? 
The fifty are scattered along the aisles and benches, 
and your cold church-member is seated at the side of 
some man whom he has defrauded. The bargains of 
that church-member with the man at his side have 
for the last week run as close to lies as the eyelids 
run to the eyeballs. No wonder the church-member 
feels cold chills ; no wonder the long knives of re- 
morse are passing up and down within his heart. 
Will any sermon do that unworthy church-member 
as much good as he will receive from the necessity of 
conversing with that neighbor whom he has de- 
frauded ? There is no clamp of steel in a vise that 
ever took hold of and bent iron as this necessity of 
conversation, on the highest of all themes, takes hold 
of and bends cold men. You can bend cold iron 
until it is hot ; and I would lay the necessity of work 
for the promotion of vital piety on all church-mem- 
bers, until they are bent into heat. But, you say, 
they do not know how to give advice. It is the fault 
of the ministry, if they do not. If there is any 
church in which middle-aged persons are not suffi- 
ciently well informed as to the things which should be 
said to the unconverted, to be trusted in conversation 



The Church for the Times. 



39 



with them, God pity that church, and God pity yet 
more the pastor of it ! I know that there are crude 
and raw churches. I know that everywhere it is 
very necessary for the minister to oversee this work. 
I would have every conversational meeting attended 
by the minister in person. I would have the minister 
close every meeting by a summary of the conditions 
of salvation ; and yet I would have the church forced 
into this work of conversation on personal religion. 
I have repeatedly seen churches thrown into it 
shivering like a babe put into a bath of cold water, 
but coming out with forehead white, and eyes like 
stars. 

In a religious conversation meeting, you say to the 
man at your side, " What is your chief religious diffi- 
culty ? " If this is once stated by the unconverted 
man, the difficulty is much advanced toward a solu- 
tion. It is easy to give bad advice to the religiously 
irresolute. Perhaps some may say to the uncon- 
verted, " Read good books." You may die reading 
good books, and die unsaved. Perhaps some may say, 
" Go to church." You may die going to church, and 
die unsaved. " Associate with the pious." You may 
die doing that, and die without salvation. You must 
teach church-members to rein up the unconverted to 
absolute, total, immediate self-surrender of the soul 
to God in Christ as both Saviour and Lord. A man 
cannot die doing that, and die unsaved. When you 
have taught your members to teach that, you will 
have impressed the doctrine upon them practically. 

If I could have the first two months of every year 
devoted to prayer meetings closed in this way by con- 
versations between the religious and the unconverted, 
I believe that two good effects would follow. In the 



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The People s Church Pulpit. 



first place, the churches would be aroused, and not 
only aroused but heated, not only heated, but set 
aflame ; and, in the next place, the unconverted who 
should meet worthy church-members would be con- 
vinced of the sincerity of the church, and many of 
them, by the blessing of God, would be won to a 
godly life. You now begin the year with a week of 
prayer ; but, thus far in the history of the church, that 
week, I fear, has been little better than a mass of vain 
repetitions. Prayer is not prayer which does not lead 
to practical effort. What I want is two months of 
both watching and praying, two full months of aggres- 
sive work opening each year in our churches. You 
can usually gather large audiences through the win- 
ter. Let all your devotional meetings, in January 
and February at least, close with conversational meet- 
ings, and the laws of cause and effect will give you 
a spiritual harvest. Your church-members will be 
trained into activity ; your Sabbath schools will pros- 
per ; you will be able to utter in the ear of youth, and 
of middle age, and of age, the word regeneration with 
Biblical emphasis. You have torpid churches because 
you have unexercised churches. You have churches 
possessed with the dyspepsia and the gout, simply 
because they are fat and do not labor. It is not food 
only that makes muscle ; it is hard work in practical 
endeavor to win the religiously irresolute into a godly 
life that gives spiritual stalwartness to the church. 
The crying sin of most laymen of our clay is, that 
they allow themselves to become torpid in easy 
church hammocks, and leave spiritual work almost 
exclusively to ministers. What I want is the destruc- 
tion of the spiritual hammocks, and of all this slug- 
gishness which brings into the church so much bad 



The Church for the Times. 



41 



blood, dyspepsia, and apoplexy. You can break up 
that by the simple method of conversational meet- 
ings adequately watched by shrewd pastors. Notice, 
I do not by any means deny that there are dangers 
in this method ; but I take it for granted that it will 
be watched constantly by an educated and a spiritual 
ministry. 

In the second place, will you permit me to say that 
Chalmers's territorial principle of district visitation 
ought to have a large future in our great cities ? We 
have now twenty cities of over eighty thousand inhab- 
itants. We have more cities of over a hundred thou- 
sand inhabitants than France or Germany possesses. 
Our population, and that, indeed, of the whole world, 
tends to mass itself in cities. One trouble with the 
poor, the perishing, the degraded, in cities, is that 
nobody visits them. We do our city work by proxy. 
We send down our female missionaries, our male city 
missionaries, to do the work that we ought to do per- 
sonally. Our Lord went about from house to house 
doing good, and the church has not yet learned all he 
meant to teach by this example. If ever we are to 
rescue ourselves from misgoverned municipalities, we 
must apply to our great cities that principle of district 
visitation which Chalmers applied to Edinburgh. We 
must see every family, and not leave the visitation 
exclusively to our pastors. They have not the phys- 
ical strength nor the time for the whole necessary 
work. We must organize ourselves two by two, as 
the disciples were organized of old, and go everywhere 
preaching the Word. It is recorded in the Book of 
Acts of the members of the early church that " they 
were all scattered abroad except the apostles, and 
that they who were scattered abroad went everywhere 



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The Peoples Church Pulpit. 



preaching." There is a justification of lay religious 
effort, I should think ! They who were scattered 
abroad taught the Word, but were not the apostles. 
It is this face to face contact with poverty that brings 
a man into sympathy with it. Go into the most des- 
olate room you ever saw, and spend a day ; go to a 
damp cellar, and sleep there through an August night, 
and you will begin to know how to sympathize with 
the men, women, and children who live constantly in 
the slums. Breathe for one week the fumes of the 
gutters, and of the livery stables, and of the nameless 
filth that infests our city death-traps and fever-dens, 
and you will begin to know what district visitation 
means. Give me a church that goes from house to 
house among the poor, and I will give you a hurricane 
of public sentiment for the reformation of our mis- 
governed municipalities. 

Although our rural districts are better than our 
cities, you know how spiritually desolate vast tracts 
of the country are, and how the obscure rural parish 
itself needs to be districted, and its population fer- 
reted out in its last nook by the omnipresent activity 
of men and women who do not lean too much on their 
pastor, and expect him to do nine-tenths of their own 
work. 

Pardon me now if I venture, in the third place, to 
mention something a little novel. Liberty of thought 
has in America set the strongest brains among the 
masses of men on fire. Great problems of philosophy 
are being discussed by laymen, with an incisive earn- 
estness which you cannot appreciate until you hear 
their questions concerning the problems of theology, 
which were once discussed only by scholars. The 
ploughman in this country thinks for himself. You 



The CJiurcli for the Times. 



43 



have question-boxes in your Sunday schools. Some- 
times lecturers venture to give question-box ad- 
dresses. I have gone from side to side of the land 
taking up questions miscellaneously from students 
and from the masses of the people, and I am amazed 
to find the questions of the average citizen often as 
keen as those of educated men. Why should not a min- 
ister do what, I confess, I did once, when I was a pastor, 
and have in his Sabbath school, or somewhere in his 
church, a preacher's question-box ? Put pencil and 
paper at the side of the box, and let questions be 
freely dropped into it anonymously. You want sub- 
jects for your sermons ; you wish to know what 
people are talking and thinking about. Let them put 
anonymous questions into the preacher's box. At first 
you will not receive many questions, but by a little 
encouraging of the people you will find that the 
inquiries will multiply, and that you can look into 
your list of questions and see the secret thoughts of 
your congregation. Let a committee be appointed to 
revise the list of questions before they are given to 
you, if you fear that frivolous or impertinent inquiries 
will be handed in. Let it be understood that you see 
none that are not approved by the committee. I 
never had an impertinent question handed to me dur- 
ing the three or four years that I acted as a preacher. 
Strong men, whom you rarely meet on your pastoral 
visits, will put questions into your box. Shy men, 
whom you can rarely approach in ordinary conversa- 
tion closely enough to reach their secret difficulties, 
will do so. If any one chooses to put in an anony- 
mous question covering the secret struggle of his 
soul, you may possibly be of assistance to him in 



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The People s Church Ptdpit. 



some public address, and he will attend church to 

hear his questions answered. 

Daniel Webster was once approached by a man 
who wished to start a new journal in Boston. The 
man recommended the use of exceedingly fine print- 
ing paper ; there was to be a flourishing title printed 
in large letters ; various mechanical improvements 
were to appear in the sheet. But Webster said, "Let 
your paper be printed in the usual form, but with 
unusual ability." Now, I would have a minister preach 
in the usual way, but with unusual pertinency. 

Suppose that I could put up preachers' question- 
boxes in all the churches of the United States ; sup- 
pose that I could cause devotional meetings to be 
closed by conversation meetings for two months in 
each year, and this from Plymouth Rock to the Golden 
Gate ; suppose that I could organize every pastorate in 
this land on Chalmers's territorial principle of district 
visitation, — what would be the result ? Of course, 
these are not exactly new measures. What I want is 
to make them universal, the common property of the 
churches, and just as much a usual thing as the aver- 
age prayer meeting or the communion service. 

Let us have help to self-help organized in assistance 
of the poor. Let us have our charities associated and 
made systematic. Let us have work given oftener to 
the needy, and money given sparingly. For one, I 
would have the Elberfeld and the German town plan 
of poor-relief applied to our cities, and money given 
only in cases where it is known it must be had to 
relieve immediate want. I would have the help given 
to the poor to be help to self-help. 

What if I should say that I would have somewhere 



The Church for the Times. 



45 



in the year temperance taught in the Sabbath school, 
and in the international lessons ? I know you have 
this in a general way, already, but it is in a very spe- 
cial way that I would have temperance inculcated. I 
would have the principle of total abstinence carried 
unflinchingly to the front in all the Sabbath schools 
of the land. You have not that everywhere ; for your 
ministers, especially in the south and southwest, and 
in Europe, do not practise it everywhere. We have 
in Boston, and in Oberlin, and in a score of other 
places in the land, Sabbath-school organizations 
where two pledges of total abstinence are offered to 
the children for their choice. One requires total 
abstinence from intoxicating drinks ; the other, total 
abstinence not only from intoxicating drinks, but also 
from tobacco and profanity. In Boston, in nine cases 
out of ten, and in Oberlin, in ten cases out of ten, the 
latter pledge has been preferred. You have not 
adopted this triple pledge in all your Sabbath schools, 
for some of your ministers have not adopted it. I 
make no apology for saying that any minister, whose 
example is not leading his young people to abstain 
from intoxicating drinks and tobacco, is bringing up 
the youth under his charge in a way in which they 
should not go. 

What if I should say that under a democracy the 
discussion of the moral issues of public affairs is one 
of the duties of the church ? Not on Sundays. I am 
not about to venture to defend Sunday politics in the 
pulpit ; but many ministers give week-day lectures, 
and I know half a dozen who have preludes on current 
events, and move whole cities by them. Now, what if 
in week-day lectures — I do not say on Sundays, for I 
would not myself employ preludes on Sundays, except 



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on the very greatest occasions — or what if in preludes 
to week-day lectures the ministry of the land should 
occasionally take current rascaldom by the hairy scalp 
and tell it its duty ? Agitation in this country, after 
all, is king of the land. Congress moves as a ship, 
according to the winds that blow upon its sails. But 
where do the winds come from ? Out of the caves of 
the hearts of the people. Who is King Eolus there, 
if it be not agitation by pulpit, press, and platform ? 
How can we rouse these winds, unless we lift our- 
selves up at times to the duty of telling commerce its 
duty, and politicians their duty, and discuss the moral 
issues of public affairs, as the prophets did of old, in 
the name of God ? What if the churches of all 
denominations, from side to side of the land, occasion- 
ally employed preludes in this way ? A politician in 
Maine had been through a long political campaign, 
and the election was to come on a Monday. He 
worked hard up to midnight, Saturday. " Now," said 
he, " I have done my duty, but to-morrow the^ minis- 
ters of Maine will stand up in their pulpits, and give 
such hints that all the work of the last two months 
will be undone in this State among respectable peo- 
ple." What if we had stood up in our pulpits in the 
North, and given such hints before the civil war as 
would have convinced the South that we could not be 
divided against ourselves, in the event of contest 
between the two sections of the land ? The contest 
never would have arisen. Where are the ministers 
who failed to do their duty concerning the discussion 
of human bondage? On their heads rests some part 
of the blood of the Rebellion. America is not out of 
trouble yet, but she has cost us so much and is so 
great that she is worth saving. In the United 



The Church for the Times. 47 



States, at least, the discussion of the moral issues 
of public affairs is a part of the duty of the 
independent platform. But on a week-day lecture 
evening, I say, let the church, from the Alantic 
to the Pacific, speak out on temperance, on sen- 
suality, on corruption in city politics, on jobbery 
in national affairs. We need not mention men or 
parties by name, but the moral issues of public 
affairs are a part of our legitimate list of subjects 
for discussion. If we would half use our power, the 
agitation that would result would be feared by poli- 
ticians to their finger-tips. The ministers of America 
have it in their power to manage politics whenever 
any great moral issue is at stake, and politics are not 
worth managing in any other case. Let the dead 
bury their dead, but the church can take care of the 
living. 

The religious regeneration of the press will follow 
swiftly on the regeneration of public sentiment. We 
have a few newspapers, great enough in convictions, 
and strong enough in their purses, to brave public 
sentiment. We have a few newspapers that are not 
party organs. Let us see to it that editors are made 
the friends of sound moral ideas. The religious re- 
generation of the pulpit in relation to secular affairs 
will affect the regeneration of the respectable portion 
of the parlors of the land. Regenerate your pulpit 
and parlor, and you will regenerate your press ; re- 
generate your pulpit, and parlor, and press, and you 
will regenerate politics in their moral issues. 

Of course, I need not pause long in defence of the 
proposition that discipline in the church which 
echoes God will be conducted according to Matthew, 
eighteenth chapter, and not according to Plymouth 



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Church, Brooklyn. A lax church discipline is the 
outcome of independency and individualism gone 
mad. There is in this country a particular need of 
sternness in church discipline, because we manage 
most churches by the voluntary principle. I confess 
that without church officers not elected exclusively by 
the laymen, almost any form of church government 
is weak as water, unless the church is filled with the 
revival spirit. Give me a glorious reformatory Bibli- 
cal atmosphere in the church, and the eighteenth 
chapter of Matthew will execute itself. Let that 
spirit be absent, and you will find the standards of ex- 
pediency and creeping conformity to the world taking 
the place of God's resonant righteousness in church 
discipline. The world will turn away from any 
church that conducts its affairs on the world's ideals 
of expediency. 

I must recommend 'a fourth year in the theological 
seminaries ; not for all students, but for some. An- 
doverhas publicly declared itself in favor of this change. 
Princeton has adopted it. I would not have all theo- 
logical students kept four years in a seminary ; but 
if a man feels a divine call to study a particular class 
of topics, and wishes to stay a fourth year under 
special training, then in God's name let the churches 
encourage him. The field of study is now so large 
that our men cannot meet scepticism unless a few of 
them are trained more than three years in a profes- 
sional school. 

A ministry or a lectureship at large for a specially 
important and difficult class of questions, ought to be 
fostered by the church. The diversification of the 
work of the pulpit needs to be as great as that of the 
wants of people in religious things. Let us educate 



The Church for the Times, 



49 



some men for a ministry at large, if they feel called to 
this by the Divine Spirit and Providence. Let us 
have a lectureship here and there, for specially im- 
portant and difficult problems ; and, if God blesses 
such work, let it be followed as far as His indications 
would lead a cautious man to go. 

Among the deeds of the church for the times, I 
would place the foundation of professorships in our 
theological seminaries on the relation of religion and 
science. Princeton has something like this, and 
has had for years. Andover, Edinburgh, Glasgow, 
have such professorships. Other seminaries are 
following in the wake of these great leaders. 
Let us meet a pinched physicism by a broad 
Christian philosophy. Let us have men capable 
of understanding the Psalms of David in the light 
of modern research. Let us know of what we 
affirm, when we discuss the relations of religion to 
science. Let us no longer blunder and stumble, and 
take an evasive attitude in the face of an arrogant and 
narrow physicism, and its offspring, materialism, 
agnosticism, and atheism. 

I would, finally, my friends, have every church ser- 
vice, large or small, closed, by an act of silent, total 
self-surrender to Almighty God. I believe the 
church does not enough address the will. We ad- 
dress the heart ; we address the intellect ; we are 
learning, I hope, more and more to address the whole 
man : but it is only the very best class of the minis- 
try that knows how to address the will, and cause 
it, by the blessing of heaven, to surrender utterly to 
God on the spot, and at the moment of the appeal. 
This is the value of the best kind of evangelistic 
services. We want no wildfire, but what is the 



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difference between the evangelist and the ordinary 
preacher ? The evangelist means to secure an imme- 
diate surrender to God. Perhaps he cannot address 
the intellect as well as you can ; but he has learned 
how to present truth to the will. You present it to 
the heart, to the taste, to the intellect, and year by 
year your ministry is fruitless. Preach to the will an 
hour, and you have done more than by preaching 
days to the mere intellect, and heart, and the taste. 
We must not undervalue this latter kind of preaching ; 
but, taken alone, it is futile sheet-lightning, and not 
the thunderbolt. Let us address the will on every 
public religious occasion, by some final act of each 
hearer calling for total, irreversible surrender of the 
will to all the light the soul has. Before any bene- 
diction is pronounced, let the audience, in both vocal 
and silent prayer, be led through a great and supreme 
act of utter self-surrender to Almighty God, as both 
Saviour and Lord. 

Through all the Bible there flame high, cherubic 
symbols to represent the church. You have the 
stone cut out of the mountain and filling the earth ; 
you have the voice of the redeemed before the throne ; 
you have the angel with the everlasting Gospel to be 
proclaimed to all quarters of the earth. He cries 
aloud, now, over all the seas, — cries in Chinese im- 
migration ; cries in the incoming multitudes from 
Europe ; cries to our land as to no other on the 
planet. But the supreme symbol we find in Ezekiel, 
where we read of the wheels and of the spirit within 
them. Whithersoever the spirit was to go, they 
went. When the living creatures went, the wheels 
went by them ; when those stood, these stood ; 
when those were lifted up from the earth, the 



• 



The Church for the Times. 



5f 



wheels were lifted up over against them. The spirit 
of the living creatures was in the wheels. The like- 
ness of the living creatures was like burning coals of 
fire. Out of the fire went forth lightnings. The liv- 
ing creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a 
flash of lightning. The likeness of the firmament upon 
the heads of the living creatures was as the color of a 
terrible crystal stretched forth over their heads above. 
Every one had four wings which covered their bodies ; 
and when they went, the noise of their wings was 
like the voice of great waters, and as the voice of the 
Almighty. Such is the voice which the church for 
these times, and for all times, is called upon to echo. 



SUNDAY EVENING. 



The Creed of the People's Church. 



J. w. 



HAMILTON, 



Pastor. 



THE CREED OF THE PEOPLE'S 
CHURCH. 



" My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the 
Lord of glory, with respect of persons." — James ii : I. 

God is the Father of man. and this divine relation- 
ship determines a divinity of relations between the 
children of men ; the divinity of the fatherhood be- 
gets a divinity of brotherhood. There is but a single 
lineage to all the races of men, who dwell upon all the 
face of the earth ; God made man but once and but 
one man. All the rights of inheritance must trace 
their genealogy to a single unquestioned legacy. The 
genuineness of every descendant's claim is foreve- 
established in the court of probate, where God is both 
Father and Judge. The authenticity of the claim is 
a matter of record. God has not only written out His 
will concerning man in the world on tables of stone, 
but he prints and opens a book in the circling blood 
of the human heart, and the kindred minds of an 
everywhere common people. All natural relations 
are divine appointments ; and the divine appointments 
are not arbitrary ; God had a rational purpose in His 
plan for the natural relations existing between His 
creatures. The plan is not, and was not, subject to 
change. He would not have had it otherwise ; it was 
so written in the determinate counsel and foreknowl- 

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edge of God. Before the mountains were brought 
forth, or ever was formed the earth and the world, the 
divine prescience forecast the plan that all things 
and all men should work together for the welfare of 
man. 

The divine ideal of the race is, then, to be found 
in this fatherhood and brotherhood of man. " Had 
this great ideal been realized," wrote an English es- 
sayist, nearly fifty years ago, "the world would have 
exhibited the glorious spectacle of a whole race in 
family compact, clothed in a robe of happiness, with 
charity for a girdle, feasting at a perpetual banquet 
of beneficence ; hailing the accession of every new- 
born member as the advent of an angel, an addition 
to their common fund of enjoyment; and finding 
greater blessedness than that of passively receiving 
happiness in exercising the godlike prerogative of im- 
parting it. A whole order of intelligent beings 
having otie heart and one mind ; a heart beating in 
concert with heaven, and diffusing, with every pulse, 
life and health and joy to the remotest members of 
the body." It was looking on this beneficent possi- 
bility that " God saw everything that He had made, 
and behold, it was very good." The joy of the 
heavens was not over the earth bringing forth grass, 
or the gathering together of the waters into seas, or 
the fowl of the air, or every living thing that moved ; 
but because of him under whose dominion these 
things were to be. The morning stars sang together 
and the sons of God shouted for joy, because of him 
who was made a little lower than the angels, and 
crowned with glory and honor. God's last work and 
best work was man, — man, who was to be the father 
and brother of man. Everything that was made was 



The Creed of the People s ChurcJi. S7 



very good, because man was good ; his divine and 
human relations were fashioned in goodness. It was 
not robbery for him to be equal with God, in the 
honor and fellowship of his family ; and he was made 
in the form of a servant, that his race might be a 
family of equals. 

But the prerogatives of his being were a measure 
of his peril. Man, as God made him, could fall away, 
and perish ; and how imminent was his apostasy ! 
In the very presence of all authority and power, and 
while he was yet immaculate, and within reach of the 
tree of life, " the awful invasion of sin frustrated the 
divine intention, destroyed it, even in its type and 
model." Infinite enigma of disaster and desolation, 
by which an enemy could thwart the divine purpose, 
and retire omnipotence within a restricted realm, 
while sin held holiday in a ruined universe ! Puzzling 
the cumulative wisdom of the fathers and their chil- 
dred in all ages, sin, threatening, furious, defiant, and 
destructive as death, is as much the problem of 
human intelligence to-night as when virtue was first 
assassinated, and man becane the murderer of man ; 
but, with reason or without it, for cause or none, the 
awful invasion came, and God withdrew from human 
helplessness, while man went off into the shadows of 
his own shame, to set the father against the son, 
and the son against the father, the mother against 
the daughter, and the daughter against the mother. 

The initial sin of the race, as of the heart, was that 
supreme love of self which arrogates to its own im- 
portance such exaggerated claims as utterly to de- 
stroy every other personal interest, and even right to 
to exist, though that interest and right were repre- 
sented in the Divine Presence himself. The irrecon- 



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cilable inconsistences of such a nature, claiming at 
once protection and support, and yet defying and at- 
tempting to destroy the great and beneficent Nature 
which affords both, reveal the exceeding sinfulness, 
heinousness, of the sin which found its way into the 
heart and home of man. We can imagine no baser 
sin among men than what wc term ingratitude ; and 
yet what shall we say of that wicked and hateful 
thing whose normal nature is to originate and pro- 
mote, not ingratitude alone, but every kindred evil 
which the genius of sin can discover or invent ? 
What evil could have victimized the race more ? 

Disorganizing and disintegrating in its influence, 
such sin takes but a single step from its entrance into 
the world to its actual dismemberment of the whole 
human family ; jealousy and envy, servants of its 
rapacious power, prey upon the affections of the hu- 
man heart, sacred and sensitive as the holy sensibili- 
ties of the Infinite Father, until the cohesive life of 
the soul is consumed within itself, and supplaced by 
an aggravating and pugnacious spirit, selfishly bent 
on battle, absolute triumph and control. Thus sub- 
duing its own nature, the spirit then goes forth to 
vex other natures, until every man's hand is turned 
into a weapon, and fratricide, the great crime of the 
first family, becomes the great crime of the race. 
What more can await the ravages of this sin ? A 
door has been thrown open to "universal misan- 
thropy," and the sweeping tide of the swelling sea of 
sorrow and death. " Selfishness," said the author of 
the essay already quoted, the Rev. John Harris, "is 
the universal form of human depravity ; every sin 
that can be named is only a modification of it. What 
is avarice, but selfishness, grasping and hoarding? 



The Creed of the Peoples Church. 59 

What is prodigality, but selfishness, decorating and 
indulging itself, — a man sacrificing to himself as his 
own god ? What is sloth, but that god asleep, and 
refusing to attend to the loud calls of duty ? And 
what is idolatry, but that god enshrined, — man wor- 
shipping the reflection of his own image ? Sensuality, 
and, indeed, all the sins of the flesh are only selfish- 
ness setting itself above law, and gratifying itself at 
the expense of all restraint ; and all the sins of the 
spirit are only the same principle, impatient of con- 
tradiction, and refusing to acknowledge superioity, or 
to bend to any will but its own. What is egotism 
but selfishness, speaking? Or crime but selfishness 
without its mask, in earnest and acting ? Or offen- 
sive war, but selfishness confederated, armed, and bent 
on aggrandizing itself by violence and blood? An 
offensive army is the selfishness of a nation embodied, 
and moving to the attainment of its object over the 
wrecks of human happiness and life. From whence 
come wars and fighting among you ? Come they 
not hence, even of your lusts ? And what are all these 
irregular and passionate desires, but that inordinate 
self-love which acknowledges no law, and will be con- 
fined by no rules — that selfishness which is the heart 
of depravity ? And what but this has set the world 
at variance, and filled it with strifes ? The first pre- 
sumed sin of the angels that kept not their first 
estate, as well as the first sin of man, — what was it 
but selfishness insane, an irrational and mad at- 
tempt to pass the limits proper to the creature, to in- 
vade the throne and seize the rights of the Deity ? 
And were we to analyze the very last sin of which we 
ourselves are conscious, we should discover that self- 
ishness, in one or other of its thousand forms, was its 



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parent. Thus if law was the pervading principle of the 
unfallen creation, it is equally certain that selfishness 
is the reigning law of the world ravaged and disor- 
ganized by sin." 

It is not because "a river went out of Eden to 
water the garden," or that its waters " compassed the 
whole land of Havilah where there is gold," or be- 
cause "the bdellium and onyxstone were there," that 
we dwell on its beauty and glory in story and song, 
but because man loved and was loved in that beati- 
fic home of the heart, unsullied by sin, and never dis- 
turbed by the selfish assaults of his fellow-man. If 
our latest conception, that this Garden of God is hid- 
den away under the arctic winters, with their ice and 
cold, should prove to be correct, we will say it was a 
fitting burial for the cold place from which love had 
gone out. The place we could afford to leave and to 
lose, with its flaming sword turning every way, like a 
cold Northern-light, to chill the blood* as it stood for- 
ever at the gate ; but the man, — appointed to be the 
brother of man, — what of him ? Desolate enough 
must be the region of darkness and cold, where the 
sun for whole months has been turned into night ; 
but when passion, wrathful and revengeful, insults and 
murders affection, and a man's foes come to be they 
of his own household, there can be no need of the 
sun, or the moon, or the stars, for there will be no 
light, nor comfort, nor hope. Is this desolation a 
type of the selfish earth ? Is our only inspiration to 
come from its departed bliss ? Was the Golden Age 
of the world in its beginning ? Must we go back 
there, in our hunger and thirst for some unselfish 
love ? There may be sources of pleasure to the 
agnostic, in some such fruitless meandering as that. 



The Creed of the People s Church. 61 

There is a beauty of imagery and pathos in the mem- 
ory of this world's Paradise. Along the North Sea, 
the people have a legend that 

"Where the sea is smiling 

So blue and cold, 
There stood a city, 

In days of old ; 
But the black earth opened 

To make a grave, 
And the city slumbers 

Beneath the wave. 

" Where life and beauty 

Dwelt long ago, 
The oozy rushes 

And seaweeds grow; 
And no one sees, 

And no one hears, 
And none remember 

The far-off years. 

" But go there lonely 

At eventide, 
And hearken, hearken 

To the lisping tide, 
And faint, sweet music 

Will float to thee, 
Like church-bells, chiming 

Across the sea. 

" It is the olden, • 

The sunken town, 
Which faintly murmurs, 

Far fathoms down ; 
Like the sea winds breathing, 

It murmurs by, 
And the sweet notes tremble, 

And sink, and die." 



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But we are not agnostics here to-night, and, cruel 
as this world may be, we are not here to dwell on a 
lost and ruined race, or to grope in the darkness and 
sin of helpless disaster, where selfishness has left us, 
and may threaten to keep us. And our faith is not a 
mere matter of memory, tinctured with poetry and 
pathetic sentiment. "The Light of Asia," or other 
pagan pictures of some impalpable and unattainable 
Nirvana, please us no better. We are neither pes- 
simists nor paganists. If this were the best any rev- 
elation could do for us, it were better at once to die. 
The importance of a belief in the future life is meas- 
ured very fairly by what it may do for the present life, 
and if there is no other or better world to be found 
hereafter than this one, then this one is as worthless, 
even to itself, as it is helpless. This edifice, at last 
erected, and thrown open to you to-day, is the monu- 
ment to a faith which puts the Golden Age of this 
world at the end of it. We have climbed to this long- 
expected hour, grappling on, as we have come over 
the rugged and precipitous ascent, by a faith which 
has for its Author and Finisher One who shall yet 
subdue all things unto Himself. He will bring back 
what sin has taken away, turn and overturn, until 
selfishness shall cease, and 

" All hearts in love, use their own tongues " 

to restore peace. The conquest of this whole earth 
is in the hands of the man Christ Jesus. God hath 
appointed Him heir of all things, by whom also He 
made the worlds, and He will conquer sin, and give 
dominion to His own people. 

But it must be in His own way and His own time. 
His methods arc all reducible to a simple discipleship 



The Creed of the People s Church. 6j 

of Himself. He said : "I am the light of the world : 
he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but 
shall have the light of life." In His prayer to the 
Father, concerning His disciples, He said : " As 
Thou hast sent me into the world, even so also 
have I sent them into the world," and in His 
last words with His disciples, He said to them I 
" He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall 
he do also, and greater works than these shall he 
do, because I go unto my Father." The " practi- 
cal apostle," as the author of the epistle from which 
the text has been selected is called, brings to our 
remembrance the first act of discipleship, found in 
the practical duties of the Christian believer in his rela- 
tion to his brother : — " My brethren, have not the 
faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory,, 
with respect of persons." It is an act of faith, — 
faith in Him who is come to be "the restorer." The 
disciple, like his Master, is set for the restoration of 
the lost brotherhood of the race. 

Under sin, as we have seen, the inclinations and 
purposes of men are universally to create orders 
of relation among themselves which are invidious 
in their distinctions and unholy. There are many 
forms of this selfish selection which could be desig- 
nated. The origin of races began in sin, whether 
with Cain who dwelt in the land of Nod, or when God 
smote the tongues of men, and the builders at Babel, 
bewildered, fled, and were scattered abroad upon the 
face of all the earth. The orders of caste, among any 
people, are products of a paganism which itself is the 
outgrowth of neglect and sin. The feudal system and 
orders of nobility in all Europe forbid New Testament 
fraternity among Christian believers. In our own 



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land, by the possibilities of privilege, every man is a 
king, and " kings are brethren." The divine orders 
of nobility are antagonized by no " majesty of cus- 
tom," in set systems of class or invidious distinc- 
tions ; but pride, price, color, and race, with certain 
fictitious systems of a " somewhat which makes for 
caste," do separate into invidious and unholy dis- 
tinctions of class in our society and among our 
people, and " men forget that they are brethren." 

This selfishness of the world, moreover, has become 
the sin of the church. And it is more directly con- 
cerning this sin that I desire to speak to-night. 
My brethren, we do have the faith of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of 
persons. The spirit of worldliness, with its pride, 
and price, and caste, is a sin in believers ; no de- 
nomination is free from it. We have come to speak 
of our interests, in religious things, as matters of 
selfish ownership. It is my church and your church, 
not God's church; my personal possession or yours ; 
it is for me or you ; my worship, your worship ; 
my comfort, your comfort. Fm saved, God is my 
Father and / am His child, hence, my church, my 
preacher, my pew ; I am of Cephas, I am of Paul, 
I am of Apollos : who are you ? Have we not distin- 
guished ourselves more by a preference for ourselves, 
our church, our particular branch of the church than 
by a sacrifice of ourselves for the sake of God's 
church, — that invisible and everywhere present 
church which must include all our churches ? Have 
we not been more ambitious at times to have our 
neighbors "baptized," "confirmed," "received," than 
to have them saved ? Is it creditable to us, when we 
pose ourselves against ourselves, rather than against 



The Creed of the People s Church. b$ 

the world and the sin of the world ? We build 
churches among us, where we exclude one and an- 
other from their pulpits and the " Lord's table " about 
their altars, as we would not dare to exclude each 
other from our own houses. It is easier for a sinner 
to get within the pale of some of our churches than 
for the members to get from one church into another. 
I have within this very year been compelled to admit 
without a letter, into the fellowship of this society, 
a Christian woman, who was in "good standing " in 
the church at her home, but who was refused a dis- 
missal, for the reason that her pastor could not, at the 
peril of her soul, give her a letter to any church out- 
side his own communion. No more pernicious in- 
fluence has come upon the church, during this cen- 
tury, than that which has gone forth from the doc- 
trine of " the decrees," — when men from their pulpits 
solemnly announced that God had decreed from be- 
fore the foundation of the world that some men were 
not wanted within the church, because, do what they 
would, weep between the porch and the altar, cry unto 
Him who hath loved us and washed us in His own 
blood, they should not, because they could not, be 
saved. And I repeat what I said at the laying of the 
corner-stone of the chapel of this church, now nearly 
seven years ago, but what remains sadly true to-day : 
— " There is a proneness among us as ministers, to 
prefer, in the work of our ministry, the man or wom- 
an, the men or women, whom we labor to save from 
sin and death, when 'that preference is based solely 
upon their worldly importance. Because a man has 
money, or friends, or talent, or influence, more pray- 
ers are offered for his salvation than for the man who 
possesses no one of these recommendations." One 



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half the people of this nation to-day exclude a broth- 
er from their communion, and a large share of the 
people exclude him from their houses of worship, 
or crowd him to the little upper attic pews among 
the timbers of the roof, and for the sole reason that 
he is more nearly the color of our Lord than are you, 
or am I. Is not the whole system of pew-ed worship 
a distinction brought into the church from the world ? 
I grant you it is a very fair system of finance, for a 
mere temporary success ; but how does it work when 
it becomes established, and is dignified with being 
called a system ? The church in this city which 
offered for sale, and sold when it was completed, not 
a few of its pews for two, three, five, and if I 
mistake not, six thousand dollars each, has been 
standing empty for years, and now, within ten years 
of its dedication, the building has been sold to pay its 
debts, and sold for less than one-third of what it cost. 
Paul, I am inclined to think, advised more wisely, even 
as a matter of finance when he said, " Upon the first day 
of the week, let every one of you lay by him in store, 
as God hath prospered Him, that there be no gather- 
ings when I come." But did not my brother read 
from this book, "If there come unto your assembly a 
man with a gold ring and goodly apparel, and there 
come in also a poor man in vile raiment, and ye have 
respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and 
say unto him, 'Sit thou here in a good place,' 
and say to the poor, ' Stand thou there, or sit here 
under my foot-stool,' are ye not then partial in 
yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts ? " 
Is it not dividing the aisles, as the great city divides 
the streets, with places for the rich, and then places 
for the poor ? Recently a gentleman of considerable 



The Creed of the People's Church. 6 J 

wealth came to this city from a home in the West. 
He at once joined himself to a congregation of wor- 
shippers, who held to a faith similar to that of the 
people from whose fellowship he had just removed. 
He soon "took a pew," however, in another church, 
and withdrew from his own people, and for the reason, 
which he gave, that " it was a comfort to see about 
you, up and down both aisles, people who could 
make a note of almost any amount stand alone." 
Is it not making traffic in the house of God for 
personal and selfish ends ? When the highest pre- 
mium paid for the choice of place is granted, is 
it not conceding to mere money the best place ? 
Are we to make the gospel a commerce, — so much 
given, so much received ? Is it not, then, substitut- 
ing a system of merchandise for what otherwise 
should be an intelligent and educated Christian be- 
nevolence ? Is it not, then, putting a dictation also 
upon what the church should furnish ? Is this the 
plan by which we culture the heart to help the poor, 
or send the gospel to the neglected and desolate in 
the distant parts of the earth ? Is it not furnishing 
the poor, or even the sensitive among the rich, 
with an unnecessary, but apparently valid excuse for 
neglecting worship in the great congregation ? It 
is said that the Duke of Wellington once went into a 
church of the nobility, and was ushered by mistake 
into a part of the house where God had no pews, 
but some persons of position and w r ealth had. When 
the owner, a lady of much wealth and high position, 
came in, and found the pew occupied, she curtly re- 
quested the intruder to retire. She, of course, did 
not recognize England's great duke : but would she 
have so insulted the stranger in her own house ? 



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When the whole slight became known, it cost such a 
sense of humiliation and public apology as should 
follow when the humblest servant among the poor 
is made to feel anywhere, within the house of God, 
that the doors to the pews never lead in, but always 
lead out. We have fostered a caste among us which 
repels the Romanist from us in his very first approach 
to the Protestant Christian Church. It was a sad 
providence which led a man or woman to be born 
in Ireland who must come to America and work 
at a menial service. If he never knew he was an 
"Irishman" at home, he soon finds it out when he 
comes to America to live, and most likely first at the 
very penitents' bench or altar-rail in the Christian 
church. And if he be an Irish Romanist, his chance 
at a Protestant church, where every member is com- 
mitted by his public vows to seek by personal effort 
for his salvation, is about as slim as the chance of an 
alien under the old and " standing order " to be one of 
the elect, when he is neither a candidate, nor indeed 
can be. The most neglected field within the whole 
scope of Christian work, in this gospel-favored land, 
is the mission ground among the Roman people. It 
is only in recent years that missionary movements 
have been initiated in Roman Catholic countries. A 
pagan has twice the chance of a Papist at the pockets 
or prayers of the Protestant Church. It will not do 
to deny it ; the Papist who is here knows it, and feels 
it in the air, and the alien who comes here finds it, 
soon as he is well landed and in sight of a church 
steeple or door. It is not necessary to specify 
further. 

Now, every instance I have cited is an evidence 
of our denial of the brotherhood of the race to our 



The Creed of the People s Church. 69 



brothers. And yet, we, as the disciples of Christ, are 
set for the restoration of the lost brotherhood of man. 
We may have no love for sin, ignorance, uncleanness, 
and people of savage and brutish natures. These 
features of life and character are all wrong. Igno- 
rance we ought to. regard as a sin; uncleanness is 
worse than sin, for it is a filthy sin; and brutish 
natures afford no companionship for the good and 
refined. Our souls, if redeemed, repel us from what- 
ever is brutish and barbarous in man. But 

" There 's a wideness in God's mercy, 
Like the wideness of the sea ; 
There 's a kindness in His justice, 
Which is more than liberty. 

"There 's a welcome for the sinner, 
And more graces for the good ; 
There is mercy with the Saviour, 
There is healing in His blood." 

And the very cure for ignorance, uncleanness, and 
beastly nature in man is to acknowledge his brother- 
hood, and put forth a sincere and sacrificing effort 
for its restoration. We are to restore the manhood 
of man, and love the man for his manhood. Under 
all uncouthness, and uncleanness, and unkindness of 
exterior, we must find the brother, and lift him up. 
This is the " faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the 
Lord of glory." It is without " respect of persons." 
Christ sees man as man. Founded upon the unity 
of relations between the creature and the Creator, 
and the creatures among themselves, this faith is a 
matter of principle and philosophy, rooted in every 
consciousness of truth and justice. Hence it is, we 
are taught to "love the brotherhood/' to love our 



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neighbors as ourselves. This is the only spirit of 
Christian fellowship taught in the gospel, and the 
last revelation of the New Testament ; it is the new 
problem which the world is now called upon to solve. 
The Church must be the first preacher of this right- 
eousness, as she must be the first to practise what 
she may preach. 

You may speak of the difficulties which originate 
your objections to this principle of the gospel, as in- 
nate, and declare your prejudices insuperable; but 
John declared that "the pride of life is not of the 
Father, but is of the world," and it must needs be over- 
come, — not simply because of an arbitrary command 
of the Father, but because the acceptance of this truth 
is the way back to the very nature of things. It is 
reason enough concerning some things to say that 
they arc natural ; the inference from experience teaches 
us that they must be simply as they are. They could 
not be otherwise. We believe some things to be as 
they are because we prove them to be so, but the 
most real things in this world are incapable of proof 
All the higher forms of truth are in the atmosphere 
above the world of logic and letters. They are the 
more indubitably true, because we cannot show how 
they come to be true. They are intuitively taught, — 
come down out of consciousness above us into con- 
sciousness within us. To perceive them is enough. 
They are simply the harmony of harmonies. It is 
into this naturalness of life we are brought when 
we are supernaturally induced to accept the faith of 
our Lord Jesus Christ. The Scriptures declare the 
very evidence of this supernaturalness to be a love 
for the brotherhood : "We know that we have passed 
from death unto life, because we love the brethren. 



The Creed of the People 's Church. 71 

He that loveth not his brother abideth in death." 
There is no higher reason for this affection, or other 
explanation of it, than that it is natural to the re- 
deemed nature. Tell me how and why you selected 
the one whom you now love. Was it an affinity of 
nature which inspired the selection ? Then the rela- 
tion of this naturalness to Jesus is an affinity of the 
divine nature. As inexplicable as the harmony of 
this universal brotherhood with the divine life is the 
fact that the discipleship of Jesus brings us to an 
acknowledgment of this common brotherhood, and 
a love for the brethren. There is, then, a natural- 
ness of relation in His discipleship. It was Jesus 
Himself who said, " Every one that is of the truth 
heareth my voice." 

In the plan and work of restoration the second great 
act of discipleship is the faith of the disciple reduced to 
practice. If man is justified by faith, "faith is justi- 
fied by works." And in the life and work of Him who 
went about doing good, is to be found the one ex- 
ample of discipleship. " As the Father hath loved 
me, so have I loved you ; continue ye in my love," 
"And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have 
been with me from the beginning." The doctrines of 
Jesus were the deeds of His life, and to follow Him is 
to do as He did. He sums up His ministry in the 
words He selects from the prophecies, concerning 
Himself, as a text for His first sermon, which He 
preached in His own town : — "The Spirit of the Lord 
is upon me, because He hath anointed me to 
preach the gospel to the poor; He hath sent me 
to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to 
the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to 
set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the ac- 



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ceptable year of the Lord." These words not only 
summarize His ministry, but are used by him to make 
full proof of the office of His Messiahship. "The 
Spirit is upon me, because He hath anointed me to 
preach." The Greek word for anointed is the very 
term from which the title Messiah, or Christ, is de- 
rived. The Spirit of the Lord was upon Him, be- 
cause He was made the Christ to preach the gospel 
to the poor. When John sought to know whether 
Jesus was He that should come, or whether he should 
look for another, He told John's disciples to tell him 
that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are 
cleansed, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel 
is preached. The office of the disciple is thus sum- 
marized, also, in these words of Jesus at Nazareth. 

He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. 
This is a distinct evidence of Christian discipleship. 
There are many systems of religion in the earth. 
Some of them teach good morals, many of them 
reveal whole systems of philosophy. But to none of 
them was it given to preach their glad tidings to the 
poor. They were burdened with their poor ; they knew 
not what to do with them, nor for them. They would 
drown them in their rivers, burn them with their 
dead, or leave them neglected, to suffer and die alone. 
But here is a system" of faith which conditions the 
evidence of its divinity upon its ability to do its best 
work for the poor, and "the poor" here signifies the 
poorest poor, so helplessly poor as to make no com- 
pensation for the ministry unto them. If such com- 
pensation were possible, the ministry must not expect 
it or condition its good gifts upon the possibilities of 
such return. The gospel provides no salary for its 
preachers, but a living The hire of a gospel ministry 



The Creed of the People s Church. 73 



is souls. Herein is the test of the discipleship of 
Jesus. The Son of Man had not where to lay his head, 
and the great Apostle to the Gentiles said : " I seek 
not yours, but you." How utterly inconsistent then 
to speak of preaching being for my pleasure, churches 
for my comfort, and pews for me and mine. Is a sermon 
an entertainment ? Are pews and churches for our ease, 
and undisturbed and selfish quiet ? Is not the gospel 
rather a burning desire to go about and do good ? Is 
not the alabaster box of ointment itself a type of the 
Christian ministry and Christian church, which the 
sinner may employ in coming to worship the Christ ? 
Is not the highest privilege of the ministry to be found 
in its lowliest offices of mercy? " Whosoever will be 
chief among you, let him be your servant." This world 
has come to honor most, the heroes and heroines who 
are such through a sacrifice for the neglected, the suffer- 
ing, and the poor. Dr. Chalmers was not so much the 
great preacher because he preached great sermons, 
but because he preached his great sermons to the 
poor. Who is Florence Nightingale but the heroine 
whose life has been given to the relief of the suffer- 
ing ? Who were Clarkson and Wilberforce, Garrison 
and Phillips ? It is to be mentioned to the honor of 
our Methodism that the voice of its first preachers 
"was heard in the wildest and most barbarous 
corners of the land, among the bleak moors of North- 
umberland, or in the dens of London, or in the long 
galleries where the Cornish miner hears in the pauses 
of his labor the sobbing of the sea." The faith which 
addresses itself to the poor can have no respect of 
persons. 

He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted. 
The special ministry of the Gospel of Christ is 



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to the heart of the people ; and in this, it differs from 
every other form of faith which the world has enter- 
tained. Other creeds have addressed themselves to 
the intellects of men, and confused their minds with 
great mysteries of godliness, while the great heart of 
the people has gone sorrowing for its sins and 
losses, and hunting its way helplessly in the earth. 
Jesus addressed Himself to the burden-bearing and 
troubled, with special comfort. " Come unto me all 
ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you 
rest." As we heard this morning, Jesus has come 
into the earth to lighten our cares, lessen our labors, 
and comfort us. Such is the nature of His ministry, 
we would expect to find Him where there is most 
heaviness of heart, ailment of body, and exhaustion of 
spirit. Had we lived when He lived, such is our knowl- 
edge of Him, that we would have sought to find Him in 
the very places where He was to be found, — at the 
gate of Nain, at the pool of Bethesda, at the grave of 
Lazarus. The significance of His divine compassion is 
evident from His tears, when He wept with Mary and 
Martha, and His lamentation when looking upon the 
Holy City, and crying out, " O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 
thou that killest the prophets and stonest them 
which arc sent unto thee, how often would I have 
gathered thy children together, even as a hen gath- 
ereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would 
not !" But it is because His ministry was available to 
all the broken-hearted that He is the incomparable 
physician even until this hour. The sin-sick soul 
has nowhere else to go ; and from the hour that He 
said unto the sick of the palsy, in the presence of the 
Scribes and Pharisees, that they might know that the 
Son of Man hath power upon earth to forgive sins, 



The Creed of the People s Church. 75 

" Arise and take up thy couch and go into thine 
house," the sick of sin have come unto Him from the 
ends of the earth, and though their sins were as scar- 
let they became white as snow ; though they were 
red like crimson they were made to be white as wool. 
And in the day of grief and desperate sorrow, no suf- 
fering soul hath He left comfortless. He hath healed 
the broken-hearted, and the cure of bereavement is 
not a mere utterance of sympathy and kindness, but 
a defeat of death and the grave. Jesus came not to 
hold some faint, glimmering fagot of fire in the door 
of the tomb, but to call the angel of the Lord, with 
countenance like lightning and raiment white as 
snow, who should roll back the stone from the door of 
every sepulchre which death has made. His disciples 
go everywhere preaching this comfort to-day, and say- 
ing, if it were not so He would have told them. And 
this is their ministry to the broken-hearted. It must 
be without respect of persons. 

To preacli deliverance to the captives. When 
Jesus ascended up on high, He led captivity captive 
and gave gifts unto men. There were then no more 
prisoners. The triumph in which He had overcome 
the world, gave Him power to make all men free- 
men, and unto Him there are no captives. He is 
the prisoner's friend. " Freedom is the spirit of the 
gospel ; emancipation from the bonds of slavery on 
the limbs, of ignorance on the mind, of sin upon the 
soul." But contrary to this spirit of the Gospel, the 
captive has been the most helpless and least respect- 
ed of men. His dungeon, without any mitigation of 
punishment, was his doom ; Christianity had no place 
in there. John Howard was a new evangelist, and 
was believed at the first to be mistaken in his mis- 



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sion, but Christ came to preach deliverance to the 
captives. He made it possible for the prisoner to be 
forgiven and his crime forgotten. The prison reform 
of all Europe was an inspiration of the Gospel. 
Otherwise it would not have been possible to preach 
deliverance to the captives. The spirit of Christ was 
to set the prisoner free. Christianity has lessened the 
number of prisoners in the earth more than one half, 
and the modified discipline of criminals is indebted to 
Christianity for its humanity and moderation. The 
deliverance which Jesus came to preach breaks every 
chain. He frees the captive from his sin, from every 
"lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the 
pride of life," that "the body of sin might be de- 
stroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." 

And recovering of sight to the blind. Jesus justified 
Himself by His works. He wrought miracles in 
proof of His ministry, but the miracles were ex- 
amples of the highest humanitarian beneficence. And 
in no other direction, save in the resurrection of the 
dead, did His miraculous ability turn with more 
pathetic interest than in the recovering of sight to the 
blind. What story is more inimitable and heart- 
stirring than that narrated in the ninth chapter of 
John's Gospel? What could have interested the man 
born blind, in the Messiahship of Jesus, more than 
the opening of his eyes ? When the Pharisees re- 
viled him, and said of Jesus, " As for this fellow, we 
know not from whence he is," what could have been 
expected of him more naturally than that he should 
say, " Why, herein is a marvellous thing, that ye 
know not from whence He is, and yet He hath 
opened mine eyes " ? Where originated the asylums 
for the blind but in Christian countries ? Where do 



The Creed of the People's Church. 77 

they exist to-day but in Christian countries ? Every 
eleemosynary house or hospital is a Christian college. 
Wherever the disciples of Jesus now go, the blind 
receive their sight. But Christ also came, to show 
us the great unseen ; He only hath brought life and 
immortality to light. What little we know of the 
world above us, He came to reveal. He • was the 
recovering of sight to the blind, whom the god of 
this world had blinded, " for," said the Apostle, " until 
this day remaineth the same vail, untaken away in 
the reading of the Old Testament ; which vail is done 
away in Christ." And this revelation we preach 
without respect of persons, to them who sit in dark- 
ness and sin. 

To set at liberty them that were bruised. It is 
but a step from the prisoner to the slave. Cap- 
tive peoples have commonly been enslaved peoples, 
and an order of rank has thus arisen, utterly in- 
consistent with the brotherhood of the race. In our 
own land it has taken the form of a denial of even the 
unity of the race, and we have degraded men to such 
despised conditions of life as to cast them without 
the pale of Christian care or helpfulness. This 
nation bears the historic humiliation of thus denying 
the rights of redemption and restoration to men 
and women who are flesh of our flesh, and bone of 
our bone ; and the Christian church, following in the 
same humiliation, had disqualified herself for deeds 
of charity and works of grace when the gospel of 
Christ had loosened the shackles of the four mil- 
lions of slaves. There is a caste in this matter 
which yet curses the church, and must associate us 
with the pagan peoples of the Old World, and for 
which we must humble ourselves in sackcloth and 



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ashes before wc may be forgiven. There are pagan 
peoples who are even in advance of us in the for- 
saking of this great sin, — and with us it is a great 
sin, for it is a sin of ingratitude as well as of pagan 
blindness. The eminent Hindoo, who has so recent- 
ly visited our city, declares that the Brahmo Somaj 
dares not foster the spirit of caste in heathen India, 
which he had seen manifested in this Christian 
country. We may learn of them what we have re- 
fused to learn of the Christ. 

" A Brahmin on a lotus pod 
Once wrote the holy name of God. 

Then planting it, he asked in prayer, 
For some new fruit, unknown and fair. 

A slave near by, who bore a load, 
Fell fainting on the dusty road. 

The Brahmin, pitying, straightway ran, 
And lifted up the fallen man. 

The deed scarce done, he stood aghast, 
At touching one beneath his caste. 

' Behold ! ' he cried, ' I am unclean, 

My hands have clasped the vile and mean.' 

God saw the shadow on his face, 
And wrought a miracle of grace. 

The buried seed arose from death, 
And bloomed, and fruited at his breath. 

The stalk bore up a leaf of green, 
Whereon these mystic words were seen : 

First, count men all of equal caste, 
Then count thyself the least and last. 



The Creed of the Peoples CJiurch 79 

The Brahmin, with bewildered brain, 
Beheld the will of God writ plain. 

Transfigured then, in sudden light, 
The slave stood sacred in his sight. 

Thereafter, in the Brahmin's breast, 
Abode God's peace, and he was blest." 

To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. The 
jubilee of the old dispensation is here made a type of 
the new. " That was a year of general release of debts 
and obligations ; of bond men and women, and lands 
and possessions which had been sold from the families 
and tribes to which they belonged." Jesus begins this 
acceptable year of the Lord. He does not during 
His short ministry accomplish all that the prophecies 
promised; but with Him begins this bringing of 
the old world to rights again, the correcting of the 
wrongs of the people, the forgiveness and saving of the 
wrong-doer, and the preaching of the acceptable year 
of the Lord. He begins the preaching which is to con- 
tinue until the fulfilment of the last prophecy. Sin 
must surrender, and the faith of the Lord Jesus must 
supply the methods of conflict until the final conquest 
shall be reached. Men must be subdued before the 
world can be saved. Selfishness must be rooted out, 
and the lost brotherhood redeemed and restored. 
This, the ministry of the faith of the Lord Jesus, can 
and will accomplish. If we have such faith with- 
out respect of persons, there is no condition of 
life which we cannot reach, no natures we can- 
not reclaim. Jesus " came to seek in the grotto of 
Bethlehem for the love of little children ; in Egypt 
for the exile from fatherland ; in the workshop of Naz- 
areth for the laboring man ; in the desert for the sol- 



80 The People s Church Pulpit. 

itary ; in the crowd for the busy trafficker ; in the 
temple for the priest ; in the synagogue for the stu- 
dent ; by the seaside on the grassy flats for the hun- 
gry ; on the shore to which the disappointed fishers 
drew their empty nets for hearts heavy with failure ; 
at the marriage feast for the light-spirited ; by the 
gate of Nain for the bereaved ; on the mountain-top 
for the ascetic ; by the well for the weary ; in the 
garden for the agonized soul ; in the palace for the 
calumniated and misunderstood ; on the pavement for 
those whom men deride and maltreat ; on the stairs 
for those whom men reject with contumely ; on the 
cross for those in acute bodily suffering ; in death for 
those at their last gasp." 

Let us then, my brethren, have not the faith of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of 
persons. 



MONDAY EVENING. 



T RUB MANLINESS. 



The Rev. PHILLIPS BROOKS, I). 



TRUE MANLINESS. 



"Quit you like men. Be strong." — I Cor. xvi : 13. 

This is a call from a man to men. It is the call of 
a man proud of his humanity, proud of being a man. 
He evidently feels that if a man is truly and wholly a 
man, there is nothing more for him to desire. He 
looks around him, and the thing that vexes him and 
grieves him is that men are not really men ; not that 
manhood is essentially and necessarily a wretched 
thing, but that men are not realizing their manhood ; 
and so his call to them is, " Quit yourselves like men." 
That is the strength in them which he desires. 
This is St. Paul. Most men test others by what they 
themselves have come to value most. A man of one 
certain type of thought or way of life is apt to call 
other men strong according to their share in those 
faculties that he has used the most. The metaphysi- 
cian judges men by the amount of metaphysical 
power they display ; the scientific man, by the scien- 
tific acuteness that they show ; the business man 
thinks other men strong or weak, according as they 
succeed or fail in the everlasting wrestle and com- 
petition of the street. But St. Paul has larger stan- 
dards ; he judges men as men, and thinks them strong 
just as they complete the large and rounded type of 
manhood. 

And I think we cannot say too often that this is 

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the ground that Christianity assumes We glory and 
delight in this tone that he takes. No religion that 
does not make men manly is good for men. No doubt 
men's notions of what it is to be manly often are mis- 
taken. To show some of the mistakes about it will 
be mainly the purpose of this sermon ; but still there 
is some credit, indeed much credit, to be given to a 
certain instinctive sense of manliness which we find 
broadly and loosely lying in the human heart ; and 
.very often the human heart is right when it turns in- 
stinctively away from some forms of religion and feels 
that they are sickly and unmanly, right when it says 
that a religion lacking the first broad elements of 
good humanity, lacking frankness, lacking robustness, 
lacking sympathy, is not the religion that God made 
for man. The human heart is right when it turns 
away from morbid types of Christianity, the types of 
the convent and the cloister, of the confessional and 
the retreat, which endeavor to undo the first human 
instincts and build some unnatural being by unnatural 
disciplines, and declares that it will have nothing to 
do with such unmanly treatment, and waits and listens 
for some voice that shall recognize the essential nature 
which God gave it as the one direction in which it must 
be educated, and calls upon men to quit themselves 
like men. 

For the whole tone of the Bible is unmistakable. 
It is wrought into all its history. The Bible tells us 
of how man, beginning as a good creation of God, fell 
out of what ? His manhood. And how God, standing 
close by that earliest failure, promised a redemption 
into what ? Into the manhood he had lost. He was 
not to be made into an angel. " The seed of the 
woman " was to bruise the serpent's head and be re- 



True Manliness. 



85 



stored. That does not mean a lower type of perfec- 
tion than if the angelic life had been promised to 
man. It does not undertake an easier work to attain 
an inferior end. But it means a different type of per- 
fection, a human type, as high as any angel's, but es- 
sentially and always different. And, therefore, when 
the method of this human redemption was revealed, 
it was a human method ; it was God made man, God 
coming into man, not to lead him off into some strange, 
unfamiliar region of being, but to restore him to him- 
self, to make man man again. That was what Jesus 
undertook for the fallen world, and that is what He un- 
dertakes for every fallen man. 

I cannot help feeling that this is most important. 
It appears to me that this thought of the purpose 
of religion is really fundamental to all its power. 
People must know what a system undertakes to do, 
must know it clearly even if very generally, before 
they can really cordially put themselves into its 
power ; and it does seem to me as if the purpose of 
Christianity, the thing that it undertakes to do, were 
so very vague in men's minds that its offers lost reality 
to them, and its temptations were not tempting. If 
you could really get at the impression of the Christian 
faith which is lying in the minds of most men who 
are not scoffers, who are respectful and deferential to 
it, would it not be something like this, — that Chris- 
tianity proposes to take the men of a certain peculiar 
character, and train them into a certain quite peculiar 
kind of life ; that the men who have that character are 
very few in proportion to the great aggregate of the 
race ; and that the kind of life into which Christianity 
tries to introduce men is one which it is not possible 
for all men to live, is one upon which many men 



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never could enter under any conceivable training ? Is 
not this the general idea ? Does not Christianity 
stand on some such ground to most men's minds, and 
is not this the reason why it has lost its aspect of 
universality, and all men are not expected to be 
Christians ? And then if the true idea could be reas- 
serted, that Christianity is the religion of redemption, 
of the restoration or bringing back of man to his true 
manhood, not the distortion of his nature, but the 
getting rid of distortions, and setting him straight as 
God made him first, making man man, must not the 
great religion come with new power to men who know 
that their manhood is perverted and overclouded, 
who know they are not thoroughly and fully men ? 
This is the view of Christianity that I want to try to 
put before you to-night, and see if by God's help I 
cannot touch some of these men, who listen to the 
exhortations of the Christian life as if they had no 
more to do with it than they have with the life of the 
angels or the brutes. Let us see first how Christian- 
ity sets up the true idea of man, and then how it helps 
every man to realize it. 

Ask yourself, in the first place, who of us who lives 
has ever felt that he had perfectly realized the idea of 
man. If we are thoughtful at all, we must have 
thought about it often enough. What is it to be a 
man ? I think I can see so many signs in the most 
common phenomena of our life, which seem to show 
me that men feci how far they are from answering the 
question. I can see so much to show me that men feel 
that no man has yet realized their full dream of man- 
hood, and yet that their dream is so real to them that 
they have not at all given it up for all the failures. 
There is something supremely touching in the way in 



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87 



which each child is welcomed into the world with a 
fresh spring of hope, as if here, perhaps, were the 
human being at last, who was to complete, or at least 
come a little nearer to completing, the unrealized life 
of man. Hundreds and thousands and millions of 
children have been born before, and failed, and yet the 
hope springs fresh by the cradle of the new child of 
to-day. It is beautiful to see how the souls of all 
races have dwelt upon the story of a perfect humanity 
in the past, and the promise of a perfect humanity in 
the future. It is beautiful to see how the world 
always seems to be on the watch for some man who 
shall give a better picture of humanity than any that 
it sees ; and just as soon as anybody comes who gives 
the slightest excuse for it, the world goes wild about 
him, and crowns him as a genius or adores him as a 
saint. It makes sad blunders with its saints and 
geniuses, but the long, unwearied waiting and expec- 
tancy itself is pathetic and significant. And then 
what does each man say to his own life ? Is there 
one of us that ever settles down and feels that he has 
done all that it is in him to do ? It is not wholly con- 
ceit, it is partly the suggestiveness and mystery of our 
own lives to ourselves, the feeling that we have not 
grasped and understood them all. If almost any one 
of us should break out late in life with some sudden 
work of genius, it would not wholly surprise him. 
Its special form might be wholly unexpected ; but we 
knew that there was something in us which had never 
yet got out into the light. At least that lightning-flash 
would illuminate into remembrance some dreams and 
visions of our youth, lying far back behind us, but not 
dead. Everywhere, if we watch sensitively, there are 
these indications that man feels a mystery, an infi- 



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niteness, an outlying and unappropriated region in his 
manhood, feels that to be wholly a man is something 
more and greater than this which he is now, or any- 
thing that any man has been. 

And this is what gives the power and point to any 
real satire of mankind. Simply to upbraid men for 
what they are and never to suggest what they might 
be, to draw the black picture of a vile man, and cast 
it into shape against no bright background of a noble 
human possibility, that is mere stupid abuse, and 
neither touches men's hearts, nor stirs their con- 
sciences, nor even provokes their laughter. It is 
just painting a swine, and saying that he is dirty. 
Of course he is. He is a swine. Frivolousness ex- 
cites us to indignant feeling only in a being who was 
made to be earnest, corruption only in a being who was 
made to be honest, cruelty only in a being made to be 
kind. This is the difference between the great and 
little satirists. This is the difference between the 
pitiable grumbler, who meets you on the street and 
launches out into violent abuse of his race, and evi- 
dently has no sight of what humanity really is, to 
give his abuse real point, and the great masters of 
satire, the intensity of whose pictures of wretched- 
ness and sin have always got their whole power from 
the intense apprehension of the essential worth and 
nobleness of manhood. This is the power of many 
of the Greek plays, which paint man's sin in such 
terrible colors as hardly any other canvas has ever 
borne. And in one great English satirist, it is this 
tender sympathy, this loving appreciation of what 
every bad man or woman misses, that makes Thack- 
eray's bad men and women live out from the page, 
and stir us, as they stirred the great heart that con- 



True Manliness. 



8 9 



ceived them, to indignation and to pity both at once. 
Now it is just exactly to this sense of an unrealized 
humanity that Jesus Christ appeals. Do you under- 
stand that about the Incarnation ? Jesus Christ came 
not to show men some strange, unnatural type of 
being, something from beyond the clouds. Here was 
man dreaming of, nay, believing in, a manhood that 
he could not find. Men discovered one bit of it 
in this good character and another bit in that, and 
they pieced them together, and tried to keep their 
courage and their faith in it alive. They looked wist- 
fully into the face of each new-born child, to see whether 
they could discover it there. They shouted aloud for 
every genius that appeared, undiscouraged by a thou- 
sand disappointments. They hoped and hoped, and 
waited. And while they waited, Christ came calmly 
and stood among them, and said, " I am He. I am 
that Son of man. I am that new Adam, which yet is 
the old Adam." How the old names all mean just 
this : that the Incarnation claims to give man what 
man has sought, the mystery and infiniteness of 
human life realized and fulfilled. Jesus comes and 
presents His humanity as the dream of all men. 
" Verily, verily, I say unto you, many prophets and 
kings have desired to see these things that ye see 
and have not seen them, and to hear these things 
which ye hear and have not heard them." " Blessed 
are your eyes, for they see." 

The Incarnation of Christ, then, was the setting 
forth of the lost and longed-for humanity. And what 
was the result ? Just what might have been ex- 
pected. Wherever the mystery and perfectibility 
of human life had been really felt, wherever the 
unsatisfactoriness and disappointment of man's fail- 



90 The Peoples Church Pulpit. 

ures and partial successes had been really recognized, 
Christ was received and welcomed ; wherever men 
had grown blind to these visions and promises, and 
had settled down upon some partial, narrow, deformed 
style of manhood, as if that v/ere the best that man 
could be or do, Christ was rejected and counted out 
of place. There are two different testimonies to the 
incarnate Christ as the satisfaction and perfection of 
humanity, — one in the souls and places where He has 
been, and the other in the souls and places where He 
has not been received. In men's closets, when men 
prayed, when men tried to be charitable, in all men's 
spiritual places and moments, Christ comes in and 
fills just the unfilled place, satisfies just the unsatis- 
fied want, and men receive Him. But in society, 
where lower standards have been accepted (often 
by the very men, strange as it may seem, who still 
keep the higher standard in the closets and their 
hearts) ; in business, in which the perfect man has 
ceased to be expected and which has therefore adapted 
itself to men's imperfections ; in public life, which has 
adopted the average man instead of the perfect man 
as the basis of all its calculations, — in all these places 
Christ, if in our thought we try to bring Him there, 
is out of place. It is not that the circumstances in 
which He presents Himself to us are special. It 
is not that He came as a Jew, and lived in certain 
Jewish habits. Strip away everything that is local 
and temporary, modernize Him as you will, you can- 
not bring Him into the midst of your social or busi- 
ness or political life, without disturbing everything. 
You pray for Him to come, but if He came you would 
be all lost. I call upon you to own this. Let Jesus 
come in upon you while you are praying, and you 



True Manliness. 



gi 



would look up and own the very being your heart has 
been longing for, — the Man of your prayers; but 
let Him come in while you are bartering or feasting, 
and His presence would be a rebuke and an intrusion. 
You have slipped down there to other and lower 
standards of humanity. 

And this leads us on to try to characterize some of 
the different types of men, which, in the vagueness of 
men's desires after the true humanity, have been able 
to impose themselves upon mankind, and make men 
stupidly accept them, against their own better knowl- 
edge, as the thing that they were looking for. These 
types are the same in all ages ; and they may be gener- 
ally characterized as the men of force, or success, the 
men of self-reliance, and the men of popularity. These 
are the impostors who, in all ages, have bullied their 
fellow-men into acknowledging them to be the pattern 
men ; the Nebuchadnezzars who have insolently sum- 
moned all men to bow down to the image they have 
set up. 

i. Take first the men of mere force, or success, by 
which I mean the men of powers which come immedi- 
ately into play and produce immediate effects, which 
they are able to hold up and say, "See, I did this ! " 
A child goes through a university, and there he sees 
a great many people who are doing very unintelligible 
things. One man is poring over books, another man 
is busy with his gases, another is watching the elec- 
tric needle, another is gazing through his telescope, 
another through his microscope. They all seem to 
him pretty idle people; but by-and-by, in his re- 
searches, he passes through the yard, and there is 
a great man with a great hammer breaking up stones, 
building the path, At last he seems to have found 



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the man of force, the man who is doing something. 
He stands and looks at him with admiration, and begs 
him to be his master and let him work under him. 
Is not that the way with which mere brute force 
seems to control men and impose upon them ? Look 
at the great warriors, — the Napoleons, the Caesars. 
I do not disparage the soldier and his skill. In this 
state of the world in which we live, we have needed 
and shall need them both again. They have done too 
much for us in this generation here in America for 
us to talk any foolish disparagement of them. But I 
do say that the man of mere military force, the soldier 
with no cause to back him and inspire him, the mere 
conqueror for conquest's sake, is as unreasonable and 
as unrespectable a being as the world has to show, 
and that the lavish admiration of his deeds which has 
greeted him all through history is an imposition of 
brute force upon the imaginations and the judgments 
of mankind, which shows how little mature our nature 
is, what children we are yet. 

Or take the very successful man of business. 
Surely we shall not be suspected of dishonoring 
him. Our houses are too full of the comforts, and 
our hearts are too glad for the charity, that flow 
out of his industry and skill. But, certainly, when 
the mere man of business desires nothing more, 
when he does what he can to make the making of 
money seem the one great end of life, when all his 
example says to the young men of a community, 
"This is what the world is for," and when men take 
for their pattern the man who has clone nothing but 
make a fortune, when "Quit yourselves like men" 
comes, in a mercantile community, to mean "Make 
money, and then make more money till you die," ccr- 



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tainly there is a great imposition here. The mere 
manifestness of certain forms of success has estab- 
lished a wholly false and partial type of manliness. 
Surely the community in which such a tyranny as 
that is going on needs just the redemption that we 
spoke of, the setting up and crowning of the true 
manliness of Christ. 

2. And the second sort of imposition was that 
which belongs to the man of mere self-reliance. It 
is strange what a power this has. A bold, brutal 
person, utterly unsensitive about what people think 
of him, so wrapped up in himself that he is utterly 
free from the restraints which hamper most men's 
action, has a wonderful power of impressing people's 
eyes and making them believe that he is a high speci- 
men of manhood. They do not like him. If his bru- 
tality touches them, they hate him. But they call him 
strong. They see how free he is from what binds, 
other men. If another man is going to do an un- 
scrupulous thing, the fear of what men will call him 
catches his arm and stops it ; but this man knows no 
such fear. If another man is tempted to a great theft, 
the thought of how this theft will throw him out of 
good men's society stops him, for he has a reverence for 
the society of good men, even if he does not try to be 
good himself ; but this man defies the community and 
its moral sense, is hampered by no reverence, is con- 
tent to live disliked if only he can be feared, snaps 
his fingers in the face of all respectability, and de- 
pends entirely upon his own personal terror to make 
men court his favor and shun incurring his displeas- 
ure. His is what the poet calls " self-sustainment 
made morality." He browbeats his fellows during his 
life, and when he dies would like no epitaph better 



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than such an one as the Roman Sylla, the prince of 
the bullies of history, left to be engraved upon his 
tomb, and such as some men would covet now for 
theirs, " Here lies Sylla, who was never outdone in 
good offices by his friend, nor in acts of hostility by 
his enemy." Now, I do not speak of the essential 
character of such a man (and such men are plenty 
among us, both in public and in private life), I do not 
speak of the harm that such men do by their own 
acts ; I only speak of the way in which they demor- 
alize the community they live in by setting up a false 
standard of manliness. Men call their insolent self- 
assertion and defiance manly. Men who hate them 
admire them. And so a general standard of charac- 
ter grows into shape, .which different men realize in 
different degrees, but which tends to become the 
character of the community in which such an impos- 
tor lives, — a character in which reverence, or the con- 
stant .sense of something greater and better than our- 
selves, social responsibility, or a respect for the rights 
of other people, and tenderness, which is always open 
to influence through the susceptibilities, are all dis- 
honored, all counted signs of weakness and unmanly. 
And so the character of a people grows hard. So in 
a community " Quit yourselves like men " comes to 
mean, " Be selfish, be brutal, be cruel, and make 
yourself feared." 

3. Then the third false type of manliness of which 
I spoke appears in the man of popularity, as I called 
him. It is not a good word, but I know no better. 
I mean that kind of man who possesses the power of 
impressing and pleasing people, and who, by his suc- 
cess, sets up the power of pleasing as the ambition of 
the circle that be lives in, and the standard after 



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which men strive. It does not sound very respect- 
able, as we describe it, but we have only to look 
around us to see how commonly accepted such a 
standard is. "The man of the world" is a well- 
known character. He appears in every society, and 
he' shines wherever he appears.. His one power is 
this, that by nature and acquirement he has the fac- 
ulty of pleasing. He is at home in any company. 
He has a sort of superficial sympathy with people's 
superficial characters, which makes him quick at see- 
ing where to touch them that he may give them pleas- 
ure. He has a genius for popularity. It is all very 
well. Such a man has his place. He helps society. 
He is the oil between its wheels, and though his own 
character gets crushed and spoiled, that would not be 
so bad if it hurt only him ; but the trouble is, that it 
is not he alone who suffers. He establishes a false 
standard of manliness. Just the opposite of the last 
character that I described, he sets up a manhood 
which consists in slavishness, in the mere desire to 
please for the mere sake of pleasing. And if there 
are always men enough in our artificial life who are 
ready to take any brilliant specimen of the man of 
the world for their model, if there are always young 
men, not of the strongest sort and yet fit to be made 
something far better of than that, who are ready 
enough to make the injunction "Quit yourselves like 
men" mean "Be finished men of the world, men of 
society ; give up your own convictions ; give up the 
habit of having convictions in order to be pleasing, 
to be popular," — if there are plenty of such young 
men always, then surely here is another false type 
of manliness, which in its milder forms is merely 
innocent and weak, but in its more pronounced 



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degrees is supercilious, and as contemptuous as it 
is contemptible. 

I am sure you recognize all these false and aggres- 
sive types of manliness, these usurpers of the name 
and character, — the narrow, the brutal, and the feeble. 
The first worships immediate success, the second 
worships arrogant self-assertion, the third worships 
universal popularity. They are all bad. They all 
keep the true manliness out. They all keep the 
great commandment, " Quit yourselves like men," 
from putting on its true character, and letting 
men see how great it is. What shall we do 
about them all, for they all press upon us ? First 
of all, certainly, we must insist, with every voice 
that God has given us, from every speaking point 
where He has set us, that these false standards of 
manliness are false and not true. We know that 
these types of manhood which we have been describ- 
ing are not the worthy pictures of our humanity. We 
know that in order to be really manly a man need not, 
and very often a man cannot, be either one of these ; 
and yet we are swept into the tumult of their praise, 
yet we allow ourselves to accept a sort of low tone 
of things, in which it seems as if this were the best 
type of manhood that could be expected, and so stand 
by and honor it as it sweeps along. We allow our- 
selves to be impressed by the force of mere audacity 
and brutal self-assertion, it sounds so strong ; and the 
young man who is listening to hear what it is that the 
community admire, while he docs hear the bad man 
and the low man criticized and perhaps hated, still 
hears that same bad or low man, if he has strength, 
if he is able to make himself prominent and be a 
power, hears him extolled, and perhaps feared, or per- 



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haps fawned on and flattered, by those who ought to 
know what real manliness is. Surely we need a 
stronger and more constant assertion that all such 
strength is really weakness. Surely all men who be- 
lieve it ought to say boldly that all power which comes 
by mere unscrupulousness is a degradation, and not 
an exaltation, of a man's character. When men who 
in their hearts thoroughly disbelieve in and detest 
them, shall stop praising the hero of mere brute force, 
and the tyrant of unscrupulous selfishness, and the 
man who succeeds by mere lack of individuality, by 
merely pleasing everybody, — when men who know 
better stop treating these, and talking about them, as 
if they were the highest specimens of human life, 
then there will be some chance for the true manhood 
to come in, and show convincingly how much superior 
it is. 

I have said already where that true manhood is to 
be found. It is in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. Very- 
little chance indeed there seems to win a showing or 
a hearing for that character of characters, so pure, so 
quiet, among the wild competition of claimants for 
men's praise, who throng our streets and deafen our 
ears on ordinary days. But here in church, when 
we are feeling, perhaps, how unadmirable a great 
deal is that we admired yesterday, how tawdry very 
much is that yesterday seemed to us very fine, I 
wish that I could set before you the simple and en- 
tire manliness of the life of Jesus. It was so exactly 
the opposite of those that I have been describing. 
There was not a particle of the striving for immediate 
success. Everything lay so deep. He worked for re- 
sults that were to come forth so far away, so long after 
the cross had closed His life. When I think of Jesus, 



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calmly looking into eternity, and doing a work which 
now, eighteen centuries after, has only just begun to 
show itself, the restless superficialness of our busy 
men, who sow their seed close to the surface, because 
they must have their worthless harvest of applause 
or influence right away, before night, seems so con- 
temptible. And then, how far Jesus was from any such 
conceit of solitary, self-contained power as our would- 
be great men assert ! He owned and cultivated every 
good dependence ; He was full of the most loving 
reverence ; He showed us all that a man is manliest 
when he hangs most utterly on God, as a stream is 
fullest when it is most freely connected with its 
fountain. He prayed, and so was manly. He acknowl- 
edged duty, and so was manly. He craved the tenderest 
relations with His fellow-men, and so was manly. He 
helped them and He begged them to help Him ; that 
was His manliness. And then, how absolutely free 
He was from the mere desire to please, for the mere 
sake of pleasing. " The man of the world," — how the 
title drops off his character, and cannot stay there ! 
He was too busy helping men and saving them, to 
labor to please them simply. That was the higher 
dependence on their needs that made Him indepen- 
dent of their tastes. In that independence of depen- 
dency His manliness was complete. 

And now, can you not understand, can you not ap- 
preciate, that that same life and character in you or 
me is the returned manhood, the redeemed manhood, 
which alone deserves the name of manly ? It is a char- 
acter, one rounded, total thing. It is not a series of 
acts. That great phrase of our text, " Quit yourselves 
like men," is all one word in the original of the expres- 
sive and significant Greek tongue. We cannot put it 



J 



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into one English word. It is as if Paul said to them, 
"Humanize yourselves." You have grown brutish, 
you have grown sensual, now be men ; and a man is 
far-sighted, reverent, tender, independent. And in 
order to do that, you must first set it before you as a 
thing to be desired, and in spite of every false stand- 
ard, know that everything is truly manly that helps 
you to a truly manly life. Oh, how many noble acts, 
that lie in disgrace, the full acceptance of this stand- 
ard of the gospel would bring out and clothe with 
honor ! There is a young man making a study of the 
Bible, catching what time he can out of the laborious 
occupations by which he earns his daily bread, and 
really studying the problems of the spiritual life. He 
knows that some things pass away, and that other 
things last forever. He is compelled to deal with the 
perishable, but he knows that the unperishable is 
more important. So he is at his Bible day and night, to 
learn what God's book can tell him of the things of 
God. It is a brave, frank, far-looking thing to do. 
He is " quitting himself like a man." Here is a young 
man praying, yes, actually upon his knees, telling God 
that he is very weak, begging for help, begging for 
mercy. He is putting aside himself completely ; 
what he can do seems absolutely nothing ; but there 
has opened upon him the thought, the hope, the 
prospect of something so great that God can do for 
him, and he is begging God to do it. He too is 
"quitting himself like a man." It is the strongest 
moment of his life. And here is a young man turn- 
ing his back on popularity for the sake of principle. 
Men sneer at him, and say, " Do you mean to reform 
the world, you brave young man ? " He is not careful 
to answer them, but he goes his way, and keeps his 



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soul pure, as Christ did His. And here is a man who 
before all the world, simply, unaffectedly, and plainly 
says : " I am Christ's servant, and I want to serve 
Him. In His house I belong, for I am His child. At 
His table I want to sit, for it is my Master's table and 
He has called me there. I want to own Him before 
all the world as my Lord and Master." Is that a manly 
or an unmanly thing ? Is it the imprisoning or the 
setting free of the noblest powers of the human soul? 
Oh, we must have truer standards everywhere ! Is it a 
manly thing, this doubting, dreaming, dawdling over 
life ? Is it manly to be too proud for reverence, too 
wise for wisdom, too critical for hope ? Is it manly to 
look at the outside of things and scorn them ? Is it 
manly to be afraid of men, and not to be afraid of 
God? Is unbelief a grander thing to live by, or a 
stronger tool to work with, than belief ? And then, 
is it unmanly to be honest ? Is it unmanly to own 
frankly the feebleness you feel ? Is it unmanly to 
give your poor soul the chance to cry out : " Oh ! 
help my poverty, if there be help to find in earth or 
heaven?'' Unmanly to pray, when prayer dowers 
your soul with the omnipotence of God ? Unmanly 
to surrender, when surrender is the coronation of 
your life ? Unmanly to be a Christian, when to be a 
Christian is to be a redeemed man ? Unmanly ! All 
human nature cries out shame upon the treason of 
the word. Is this unmanliness, to own a duty and ful- 
fill it ? In face of taunt, in face of terror, to fight your 
way into a faith ? To stifle sins you know are shame- 
ful, to say " You are unmanly " to the cowardices that 
would scare you, to do the thing you know you ought 
to do, and bravely claim the help you know you need 



True Manliness. 



IOI 



to do it ? Is it unmanly in these realities of life to 
be in earnest ? 

Again I return, and close where I began. When a 
man comes to Christ, in the great language of the 
Parable of the Prodigal, he " comes to himself." How- 
much that means ! It is not anything unnatural ; it is 
the setting free of the soul, to go where it belongs, 
to be what it was meant to be. He has been behav- 
ing like a brute, he has been behaving like a machine. 
Now the man lifts himself up, and for the first time 
"quits himself like a man" when he says, "I will 
arise and go to my father." Then comes the prog- 
ress of a man's redemption. The blurred colors all 
grow vivid and bright again, the image of God comes 
out, the soul little by little knows its full salvation, 
and the child at last enters in and sits down forever 
in the Father's house. 



TUESDAY EVENING. 



THE MISSION OF CHRIST. 



The Rev. J. P. NEWMAN, D.D., LL.D. 



THE MISSION OF CHRIST. 



This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ 
Jesus came into the world to save sinners. — i Timothy i : 15. 

I ask your earnest and prayerful attention to a 
sermon on the mission of Christ, suggested by a 
passage of Scripture in the First Epistle of Timothy, 
the first chapter, and the fifteenth verse : " This is a 
faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that 
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." 

Four great facts confront us at every turn : — 

1. There is that in the world which men have 
agreed to call vice. What vice is, what its source is, 
we need not delay for a moment to discuss. It is 
enough for the argument, that men by a universal 
consensus have agreed that vice is, and that, what- 
ever vice may be, k is the parent of all misery, 
whether individual, domestic, social, national, or race. 

2. There is that in the world which men have 
agreed to call virtue. What virtue is, we need not 
now define ; what its source is, we need not delay to 
declare. It is enough for the argument, that men 
have agreed that that which is known as virtue is the 
source of all happiness, personal, domestic, national, 
race. 

3. The seat of vice and virtue is not in the phy- 
sique, is not in the intellect, but is in that which men 
by general consent declare to be character. Some 

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words elude us ; we know what we mean by them, 
but we cannot define them satisfactorily. We can- 
not give a definition of character, as we cannot give a 
definition of light or of life. I do not know an as- 
tronomer in Europe or America, who would risk his 
reputation in attempting to define light. I do not 
know a biologist in this country, or in the world, who 
would risk his reputation in attempting to define life. 
So I do not know of any metaphysican who would 
risk his reputation in attempting to define character ; 
and yet there seems to be this conception thereof, 
viz., that it is descriptive of that which a man is in 
his modes of thought, in the tendency of his passions 
and appetites, and in whatever tends to a totality in 
his being and a finality in his destiny. Men generally 
assert that that is character; and that in this charac- 
ter, which lies back of the judgment, back of the im- 
agination, back of the act, back of the word, back of 
the thought, and out of which the thought and the 
word and the act spring as effects from a cause, 
vice and virtue reside. 

4. That the power to suppress vice, and to develop 
virtue, is not in man nor of man, is not in government 
nor of government, is not in education nor of educa- 
tion, is not in the fine arts nor of the fine arts, is not 
in the church nor of the church, is not in the sacra- 
ments nor of the sacraments, is not in the priesthood 
nor of the priesthood, is not in the Bible nor of the 
Bible, is not in Christianity nor of Christianity, only 
so far as Christianity is the embodiment of a power 
that is outside of man, that is higher than man, that 
is as high as God. Men gravitate here. This is the 
crystallization of the final thought of a human soul, 
when thrown back upon itself to find the pardon of 



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107 



its guilt, and the eternal repose for which we all 
seek. 

The discussion, however, belongs under the fourth 
head. Here we join issue with those who do not 
accept Christianity as the only sufficient and efficient 
remedy for our moral condition, whereby we are re- 
novated, transformed into the divine image, and 
whereby we are lifted up into that companionship of 
God which imparts repose to the soul. 

The text is one of those voluminous sayings of Holy 
Scripture, containing thought enough for a dozen dis- 
courses. " It is a faithful saying," — the very faithful- 
ness of God's word is a text in itself, — "and worthy 
of all acceptation," — the worthiness of it to command 
the confidence of all mankind ; " that Christ Jesus," 
— His personality ; "came," — his pre-existence, who 
could not have come had He not had a pre-existence ; 
"that Christ Jesus came into the world," — His incar- 
nation, born of a woman, and created under the law ; 
" came into the world to save sinners," — almost every 
word is pregnant with a divine thought, and sufficient 
of itself as a text for a discourse. 

The mission of Jesus Christ is twofold : — 

First, it is to readjust our moral relations with the 
divine government ; to satisfy the majesty and the 
authority and the justice of that government. How 
this is done must always remain a mystery. The 
theologians attempt to explain it, but He who is 
greater than the theologians never made the attempt. 
It was enough for Him to assert, enough for St. Paul to 
declare, that this is true, — that in some way Christ's 
sufferings are vicarious, in some way acceptable to 
the Almighty Father for the maintenance of the maj - 
esty and the authority of the law ; His sufferings are 



108 The People s Church Pulpit. 

sufficient to justify the Almighty in pardoning guilt, 
in granting justification by faith. 

With that great branch of the subject I must not 
delay to-night. I wish, rather, to call your attention 
to what may be called the objective, what may be 
called the personal mission of Jesus Christ, how He 
proposed to save sinners. He " came into the world 
to save sinners ; " that is His great mission. And if 
He did so, we must take into consideration the facts 
already stated, and not forget for a moment that man 
is a fallen being, that the race is apostate. We stand 
firmly by the story of the Garden of Eden, that our 
ancestors originated in the Garden of Eden and not 
in a zoological garden ; that we accept the facts of 
the creation and the fall of man, as stated by Moses. 
And, secondly, we must, therefore, look upon man as 
needing a Saviour. The question now is, how can 
two things be accomplished for man : first, how can 
his sins be pardoned ? That is relegated to the first 
branch of the Saviour's mission. The other is, how 
can his moral nature be so changed that his passions 
and appetites shall be held in check, that his con- 
science shall be intoned to the severest morality, that 
his affections shall enthrone the Almighty, that his 
will shall be in harmony with the great Creator, that 
he shall bear the image and the superscription of God 
the Father ? That is the initial question, the simple 
point I wish to present to your judgment and to 
your hearts to-night. 

In doing justice to a theme so broad and grand as 
this, we shall be unjust to the past, and unjust to 
those who differ from us, were we not to take into 
consideration, for a moment at least, those other 
personages known to history, who have averred them- 



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109 



selves and are now being esteemed as the saviours of 
the world, and who are placed, not only in contrast, 
but in comparison, and in superlative comparison, with 
the Son of man. We are bound, therefore, to glance 
at the three professedly original theories that are 
known to the world. And when I say three, I de- 
clare that it is my candid judgment that there are 
but three theories whereby man is to be saved, that 
can claim originality. And, singularly enough, all 
these theories belong to the East. The West has 
given to the world no new religion. The West has 
given sons of genius, men who have been conver- 
sant with every department of nature, men who have 
given direction to the commercial, to the intellectual, 
and to the political thought of the world ; but this is 
true, that the West has originated no religion. All 
that we have is from the East. 

So I turn your attention to one whose name is 
great, who sways his mighty sceptre, as he has 
through two millenniums, over a third of the human 
race ; a man deservedly great, who, since his death, 
has been worshipped by his followers ; who attained 
marvellous self-abnegation, who held his passions and 
appetites in sublime control, who beautified his life 
with charity, who left to his followers some of the 
most beautiful maxims of every-day life, and who, 
to-night, is great in the greatest of all the nations of 
the East. But what was Buddha's idea of the radical 
condition of humanity ? It was this : that life is 
miserable, and that to desire to live is to be miserable, 
and that to cease to desire to live is to be happy. His 
Nirvana was a state in which all desires cease and all 
passions die. Whether his Nirvana was the extinction 
of consciousness is a question of dispute among the 



no The Peoples Church Pulpit. 

most learned men in the East and in the West. The 
only point which it is necessary for me to assert to- 
night is this : that he declared that to desire life was 
unhappiness. I would not pluck a solitary leaf from 
the chaplet that crowns the brow of Gautama ; I would 
place him on the highest possible pedestal, for I 
know that there is another pedestal that rises higher, 
on which stands One, and will stand forever, whose 
ears are banqueted forever with the. music of the 
redeemed souls in glory. What has been the effect 
of Buddha's theory of humanity and of salvation ? Go 
through Burmah, Siam, China, Japan ; has there been 
a suppression of vice and a development of virtue ? in 
other words, has there been accomplished that reno- 
vation of man's moral nature that is required by the 
highest virtue, and, consequently, for the highest 
happiness ? 

Let us turn to another great religious teacher of 
the world, great in the empire of China, great because 
no man except the Son of Mary has more temples 
dedicated to his name, Confucius ; and in the city of 
Pekin, once a year, the emperor, surrounded with his 
court, stands before the ancestral tablet, and chants 
this refrain : — 

Confucius, Confucius, how great is Confucius I 
Before Confucius there was no Confucius ; 
Since Confucius there has never been a Confucius. 
Confucius, Confucius, how great is Confucius ! 

He differed from Buddha in this : he declared that 
human nature is radically good, and capable of rising 
to the highest moral excellence, independent of exter- 
nal forces. By what power did he propose to reno- 
vate human nature ? By subordination. So he 



The Mission of Christ. 



in 



introduced that beautiful element into society con- 
tained in our own decalogue, filial obedience, and 
nowhere on the face of this globe is there so much 
filial reverence as in China, the children revering the 
father and mother. But what has been the practical 
result of this subordination, as taught by the great 
teacher of the Chinese ? Has it accomplished the 
great moral result desired ? Go to that vast empire, 
and there you will find such a state of morals touch- 
ing honesty, touching truth-telling, touching private 
and public virtue, as is not consistent with the well- 
being of society. Confucius has failed, by the declar- 
ation of those best competent to judge, to accomplish 
the result. 

There is another system of redemption. It is in 
that magnificent country, India, that land of the Jumna 
and of the Ganges, that land of thrones and palaces, 
that land where the marigold waves its golden robes, 
and where the palm waves its plumes on high ; India, 
that land where are some of the oldest of the sacred 
writings of the world, outside of our own Scriptures. 
What is the radical idea of Brahminism touching 
human nature ? It is this, that sin resides in the 
flesh, that virtue resides in the intellect, and conse- 
quently the great pundits of India have formulated 
their theory thus : Reduce the physical to the mini- 
mum, exalt the intellectual to the maximum, and 
you suppress vice and exalt virtue. I saw in that 
magnificent country those people called the Fakirs, 
whose whole life was devoted to the subjugation of 
the physical, to the development of the intellectual, 
hoping thereby to overcome what they esteem sin 
in their nature, and to develop a higher and better 
life. But go to India, after the millenniums that have 



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passed testing Brahminism there, and you find a land 
of pantheism that is intermixed and crusted all over 
by a polytheism, so that there are not less than three 
hundred millions of gods, so that everything is a 
god, and in a presence so refined as this I must not 
mention that which is worshipped in Benares, the 
paradise of the Fakirs, that splendid city on the banks 
of the Ganges. 

Now, these are the three great theories, and, so far 
as I am aware, I do not know of any other theory that 
may be called original for the redemption and eleva- 
tion of human nature. I turn away, of course, from 
Mohammedanism, because that is not original. I turn 
away from Mohammed, because he was not an original 
thinker, and his Koran is simply a piece of plagiarism 
from beginning to end, and Mohammed is not to be 
esteemed in any sense an original character as a 
religious teacher ; but I take Buddha and Confucius 
and Brahma, these three and no more, and then I ask 
the divine Master to descend, and I inquire of Him 
what is His conception of the original condition of 
humanity, and what is His plan whereby humanity is 
to be changed and elevated. Standing upon the 
eminence of the ages, He looked out upon the race to 
ascertain what had been accomplished. He turned 
His attention to Buddhism and saw that that had failed, 
to Confucianism and saw that failure was there, to 
Brahminism and saw failure there ; for it seemed to 
be the ordination of Heaven that these three great 
systems should be tried and found wanting, ere He 
came. Then, in His own divine wisdom, He proposed 
to take the citadel of man, to become the King of 
hearts, and to go through the world asking for 
the human heart, pronouncing the beatitude, 



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113 



" Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see 
God ; " uttering that great declaration, " Seek first 
the kingdom of God ; " and giving utterance to that 
memorable condition of everlasting life, " Ye must be 
born again." 

This is, the great thought, and I would have you 
look at it in the light of history for a solitary moment, 
to forget that we are pleading in the interest of 
Christianity, and to think that rather we are searching 
for the truth, and seeking to ascertain that which is 
fundamental. And in view of this, I do not hesitate 
to say that what Jesus did not do was as remarkable 
as what He did do ; that what Jesus did not say is as 
remarkable as what He did say. 

You cannot call Him, in the ordinary sense, a phil- 
anthropist, not the philanthropist of the present day, 
not the philanthropist of Boston or New York, for a 
moment's reflection will show you that He did not do 
what you demand of the philanthropist of the present 
time. He came into the world to save sinners, but 
He did not come primarily to improve man's physi- 
cal condition. He reared no houses of mercy ; He 
founded no orphan asylums. The orphans cried 
around Him and the widows sighed, but those institu- 
tions of which we are so proud under our Christian 
civilization, He did not found. He did not send the 
schoolmaster abroad, He founded no university of 
learning. He might have anticipated the great dis- 
coveries of science and the great inventions of art, 
for all these things floated in His divine imagination, 
and He could have anticipated those inventions which 
have lifted the burden of toil from the shoulders of 
humanity, and which constitute the glory of our age. 
What a system of materia medica He could have 



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given to the world ! He could have anticipated all 
the discoveries and all the applications in medical 
science. In His clay this science was not only in its 
infancy, but it was simply barbarous, and He knew it. 
But He did not come for these purposes primarily. 
He was bound to adhere to the great central thought 
of His mission ; He came into the world to save sin- 
ners. He did not come as a statesman. Thrice He 
was invited to be a judge, and thrice He refused. 
Once He was invited to be a king, and He declined. 
The people would have crowned Him king, but He 
refused. He expressed no preference for this form of 
government or for that ; for a republic, or an aristoc- 
racy, or an autocracy. He formulated no principles 
of statesmanship. This was not His mission. He 
came into the world to save sinners. 

Nor is it true that He came as an emancipator. 
Slavery existed in His day, under His eye; the 
auction block was in the Holy City. He heard the 
clanking of the chains of the slaves, and He Him- 
self foretold that when the Holy City should be de- 
stroyed, His own people should be sold into slavery; 
yet He has not the honor of Wilberforce or of Lin- 
coln to issue a proclamation of emancipation. The 
drunkard reeled through the streets of the Holy City, 
and yet He presented no pledge of total abstinence. 
The courtesan was in the city of Jerusalem, as she 
has been in all the great centres of our race ; yet, un- 
like Mrs. Frye, He did not organize midnight missions 
to rescue her. The children played around Him, He 
gathered them into His arms, but He has not the 
special honor of the formal organization of the Sun- 
day School. 

I say, then, that what He did not do was as re- 



The Mission of Christ. 1 1 5 

markable as what He did do. He was too wise to do 
those things which were subordinate to that which 
was primary in His mission. In other words, these 
were to be the effects of a grand causation, and 
that causation was divine. He looked over the world 
and asked Himself what humanity needed, and He 
determined this great truth : that which was needed 
was the incarnation of Himself in the individual man, 
and hence, as the King of hearts, He went through 
the world begging for hearts. He said to Himself, 
" If I can enthrone myself in the heart of a man, and 
harmonize his will to mine, and his affections with 
mine, and his conscience with mine, if I can incarnate 
myself in a man so that that man shall be a living, 
walking, talking, thinking Christ, I shall then lift up 
humanity." We dream of a millennium, and our pas- 
tors excite us, sometimes, to shout over the glorious 
pictures which they draw of the coming of the millen- 
nium. But the philosophy of the millennium, as 
taught by Jesus, is that every man is to have a millen- 
nium in his own soul ; and it is the aggregation of 
these millenniums that is to produce the universal 
millennium, and there are some men here to-night who 
are walking in white, whose robes have been washed 
in the blood of the Lamb ; there are some women 
here to-night who are the embodiment of the millen- 
nium as true as when that higher glory shall blaze 
upon our sin-darkened planet. Our divine Master 
says : Ye must be born again, recreated ; you must 
permit me to come in and bring my Father with me ; 
you must permit me to enshrine myself in you ; 
so St. Paul expressed it, " I am crucified unto the 
world, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ who 
liveth in me." 



n6 The Peoples Church Pulpit. 

This, then, is the philosophical system of Christian- 
ity, whereby humanity is to be renewed, elevated, ad- 
vanced. And I hold this to be true, that whenever 
men have advanced to a better future, the advance 
has always been preceded by the acceptance of this 
great truth of Christianity ; or in other words, always 
preceded by a revival of evangelical religion. You 
do but justice to history in responding to that fact, 
for it is simply an historical fact. I am aware that 
Buckle — and I do not say anything to the discredit 
of a genius so great, to an intellect so luminous, to a 
scholarship so rich as his — says that all the advance- 
ments of humanity to a better future have been 
preceded by an intellectual revival. That is true. 
And so he tells us that the great Germanic Reforma- 
tion out of which issued Protestantism was preceded 
by a revival of letters in Italy ; by the coming of 
Michael Angelo, beneath whose chisel the marble 
breathed, and Raphael, the divine, beneath whose 
pencil the canvas smiled or frowned as he touched it. 
He refers to the masters of intellect, and he is right. 
He then reminds us of the intellectual revival that 
preceded the advance of humanity in our own century. 
But then Buckle deals in half-truths. He is not just 
to history. Buckle should have said that those who 
were the great revivalists were Christian men, 
devoted to Jesus Christ our Lord. Take, for in- 
stance, the intellectual revival that was antecedent to 
the Germanic Reformation. He refers us to the Greek 
scholars, who in 1453, I think in the middle of May, 
fled from Constantinople under Constantino XII., 
the last emperor of Byzantium, when Mahomet II. 
with 400,000 soldiers gathered around that venerable 
metropolis. He refers to the fact that out of that city 



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fled Greek scholars with parchments under their 
arms, that they went to Italy, that they were received 
there, and that Julius II. and Leo X. were patrons of 
science. All this is true; but then Buckle should 
remember that those very Greek scholars that fled 
' out of Constantinople were humble Christian men, 
and that they fled before the crescent, rather than 
submit to which they followed the cross. Then if it 
is true that we advanced in our century to a grand 
and glorious future, and that by a revival of learning, 
Buckle should also have remembered that those who 
inaugurated this great advance sought to think God's 
thoughts, high priests of nature who lived in commu- 
nion with God, who were believers in and followers 
of Jesus Christ ; that the very men who impressed 
their spirituality upon their own generation and our 
generation were men of pre-eminent scholarship, at 
once advancing the interest of learning and the in- 
terest of religion. 

Now, look at the facts. Did I say that Jesus did 
not come into the world to improve man's temporal 
condition ? Yes ; but this is true, that wherever His 
great doctrine of the regeneration of the human soul 
is accepted and practised, there is the temporal eleva- 
tion of man. Liberty, and wealth, and learning are 
given to those people that accept Him as a personal 
Saviour. It is also true that houses of mercy are 
confined to Christian lands. During our centennial, 
a scholarly Chinese present in the city of Philadel- 
phia wrote an article for a Philadelphia paper, to the 
effect that in his country there are asylums for the 
widow and for the orphan. That is true ; but that 
scholarly Chinese might have told two other things : 
first, that before those asylums were established, there 



llS The Peoples Church Pulpit. 

were also in his country asylums for animals, from the 
dormouse all the way up to the camel, and that the 
Chinese were far in advance of Wallace and Darwin, 
for they believe that those animals would be men in 
the next world. Then he should have remembered 
another thing, that the charitable institutions of 
China were not in existence before Christianity came 
to the Chinese Empire. For, had you the patience 
and I the time, I could demonstrate now and here 
this fact, that three times Christianity has held sway 
in the vast empire of China ; certainly twice, once 
under the Nestorians, when through a thousand years 
Christianity was established there by missions, and 
through three hundred years, from the emperor down, 
the religion of our Lord was the dominant religion. 
Turn to Gibbon, if you please, he is sufficient author- 
ity for me, or turn to Williams, so long our charge 
d'affaires at Pekin, late Professor of Chinese at Yale, 
turn to his "Middle Kingdom," and read the account of 
the Nestorian mission. Then take another fact, that 
in the year 60 of our calendar, the Emperor of China 
heard of the coming of Christ in Palestine, and sent 
an embassy to invite Jesus to come to China. He 
had known through a Jewish colony that had been 
planted in China for six hundred years, according to 
Williams, that the Messiah was to come. Christian- 
ity is not a stranger in the Celestial Empire. 

This is true, that wherever Christianity is permit- 
ted to exert its self-sustaining and self-expanding 
power, to work out its legitimate results in the re- 
generation of men, there the orphan is housed, there 
the widow is comforted, and there all forms of human- 
ity are blessed by the hand of divine charity. Is it 
true that Jesus did not send the schoolmaster abroad, 



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and did not establish universities of learning ? He 
was too wise for that. He would not do what man 
could do. He proposed, however, something better, 
namely, a religion which would emancipate the com- 
mon intellect ; and wherever this religion has been 
accepted, there have universities of learning been 
founded by Christian men. And to-night Christen- 
dom writes the poems, writes the orations, writes the 
philosophies, writes the history of mankind, showing 
this great truth, that Christianity is the most intel- 
lectual religion known to mankind. And I do not 
hesitate, in this city of great intellect, and before a 
congregation so intelligent as this, to make this 
remark : that all the original discoveries in science, 
and you will place the emphasis where I place it, and 
all the original inventions in art, are the work of Chris- 
tian men. Infidels in Germany, and ' in France, and 
in England, and in America nave made contributions 
to art and to science, but these contributions have 
been subordinate. The original, these have descend- 
ed from God to those who accepted Christ Jesus, His 
only Son. Is it true that He did not appear among 
men as a statesman ? He did something better. He 
declared the brotherhood of mankind, the eternal 
principles of truth and justice, and He knew that just 
in proportion as He was accepted as the personal 
Saviour, in that proportion would these great funda- 
mental principles be embodied in the constitutions of 
nations. Glance at the nations' of our own time, not 
through a lustrum or a decade, but, say, through 
fifty years, and observe the wonderful modifications 
of these governments ; and these transformations 
have all been in the interest of liberty. Take Aus- 
tria, — Austria, so long subject to the house of Haps- 



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burg, so long the propagandist of Ultramontanism, so 
long in a condition approaching the darkness of 
mediaeval times, and yet, strange to say, Austria 
to-night has the most liberal constitution of continen- 
tal Europe. Do you ask me the secret of all this ? 
Count Von Beust — he who laid his fashioning hand 
upon the constitution whereby Austria has religious 
liberty, free schools, and a free press — that Count 
Von Beust is an humble, devout Christian man, in 
hearty sympathy with the great mission of Jesus 
Christ through the regeneration of the human soul. 

Go down into Italy, and what do you find there ? 
The same thing is true. Italy, so long under the 
control of pontiffs, to-night is unified, Italy is free. 
On the steps of St. Peter's stands a Methodist preach- 
er with a copy of King James's Bible in his hand, 
ready to offer it to the Holy Father, whenever he 
shall dare to come out of the Vatican. There has 
been this marvellous change ; and wherever Christian- 
ity has been accepted, these great principles have 
been embodied in the constitutional and statutory 
law. This is the highest statesmanship. 

Is it true that He issued no proclamation of eman- 
cipation ? He would not do that, for He knew that a 
proclamation of emancipation would not be effectual. 
He proposed to humanize the human heart, to create 
in man a passion of love for his fellow-man ; and He 
waited" patiently on the throne of the universe, know- 
ing the time would come when He would appear 
incarnate in Wilberforce and in Lincoln, and through 
these men slavery would be abolished. This is the 
great thought, that where the chains have been struck 
off, where the manacles have fallen, they have been 



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121 



broken off by men who have been devoted to Jesus 
Christ our Lord. 

Is it true that He did not offer the pledge of total 
abstinence to every man ? He proposed that man 
should regulate his passions and appetites from an 
internal force. Is it true that He did not organize 
midnight missions for the courtesan ? He knew that 
it would be necessary to create in man a new affec- 
tion and esteem for woman, and just in pro- 
portion as that new affection and that new esteem 
should be the outgrowth of this incarnation of Him- 
self in the very heart of man, in that proportion 
would the social evil fade away from the vision of the 
world. He knew that in due time He would appear 
incarnated in such a lovely Christian woman as Mrs. 
Frye, who would go out on her midnight missions to 
save these poor erring daughters of our race. This 
on the one hand, while on the other the church 
would see to it that there would be such discipline of 
the passions on the part of man that woman should 
be exalted to her true social status and her true re- 
ligious condition. 

Is it true, that He did not come as a philanthropist ? 
He is the prince of philanthropists. He comes up 
before us to-night, crowned with all the glory that is 
due to those whose lives have been filled with charity 
toward man and of devotion toward God. 

What, then, is the hope of mankind ? It is not in its 
schools of learning ; it is not in houses of mercy ; it 
is not in forms of government ; it is not in the genius 
of law ; it is not in the fine arts, nor in the use- 
ful arts ; it is in nothing that is human, but the hope 
of humanity is the conversion of the sinner from the 



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error of his ways through Jesus Christ our Lord. All 
hail to everything else ! All hail to the press ! All 
hail to the Sunday school ! All hail to the church, 
with her sacraments and with her Bible ! But then 
these are all so many spheres around this one great 
central truth, which is the inspiration of everything 
else. 

Shall we ask ourselves, in conclusion, what has 
Christ done for humanity, in contrast to what others 
have done ? One discovers a new world. Well done ! 
Another gives to the race the art of printing. Well 
done ! Another is instrumental in the revival of let- 
ters in the sixteenth century. Well done ! Another 
demonstrates the identity of electricity and lightning, 
so essential to science, and this is a benediction. 
But when we gather together all these benefactors of 
our race, we discover that their mission is subordi- 
nate ; and looking away to Christ, we ask Him for 
His great mission, and the response is, " I am the 
King of hearts, I change hearts, I establish in the . 
heart a principle that will work out into human life, 
and as this becomes a fact, life is beautified, enno- 
bled, and made grand." " He came into the world 
to save sinners." Let this beautiful church, the 
product of the tears and prayers and energy of 
your noble pastor, let this spacious church, the Peo- 
ple's Church, because it is a Christian church, let 
this be consecrated to this divine mission of saving- 
sinners, and it will be a benediction to mankind and 
a doxology to God. 



WEDNESDAY EVENING. 



The Aristocratic Spirit not of the Gospel 



The Rev. J. M. BUCKLEY, D. D., EL. D. 



THE ARISTOCRATIC SPIRIT NOT OF 
THE GOSPEL. 



"Then said he also to him that bade him, When thou makest a 
dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy 
kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbors ; lest they also bid thee again, and a 
recompense be made. But when thou makest a feast call the poor, 
the maimed, the lame, the blind; and thou shalt be blest: for they 
cannot recompense thee : for thou shalt be recompensed at the resur- 
rection of the just." — Luke xiv : 12, 13, 14. 

Our Lord was in Jerusalem, and certain of the 
Pharisees warned Him to depart, for Herod had threat- 
ened to kill Him. Jesus said: "Go ye, and tell that 
fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and do cures to-day and 
to-morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected." 
Then He delivered His pathetic appeal, — u O Jerusa- 
lem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest 
them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have 
gathered thy children together, as a hen gathereth her 
brood under her wings, and ye would not!" Upon 
the Sabbath, He went into the house of one of the 
chief Pharisees to eat bread. The spectators watched 
Him, to see if they could find in His words or conduct 
something upon which to accuse Him. A certain 
man was before Him who had the dropsy ; and we 
must fancy the spectacle of our Lord sitting among the 
Pharisees, some of whom were malignant, scrutinizing 
every word and every act, and the sufferer from dropsy, 
who may have belonged to the family of the Pharisees, 

I2 5 



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or may have been brought in merely to see what 
Christ would do. Our Lord said to the lawyers and 
Pharisees present, " Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath 
day?" They had learned before that day how dan- 
gerous His questions were, and they held their peace. 
Christ " took him, and healed him, and let him go," 
and turned to them and said, " Which of you shall have 
an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straight- 
way pull him out on the Sabbath day ? " And they 
held their peace again. They could not answer Him 
to these things. What a -thrilling scene was this ! 
Malignant, yet silenced ! Then our Lord put forth a 
parable to those who were bidden, when he marked how 
they chose out the chief rooms ; and a very remarkable 
parable, with a very remarkable moral, it is. It con- 
tains a philosophy of promotion contrary to that which 
obtains in the world, and yet as likely to be rewarded 
with worldly honor and success as the more common 
method of seeking it. There was a subtle law of as- 
sociation between the parable, and the precept and 
promise ccrtained in the text. Our Lord had told the 
guests what to do. He now turns to the host, and 
gives him instruction. "Then said he to him that 
bade him : When thou makest a dinner or supper, call 
not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, 
nor thy rich neighbors ; lest they also bid thee again,' 
and a recompense be made thee. But when thou 
makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, 
the blind : and thou shalt be blest ; for they cannot 
recompense thee : but thou shalt be recompensed at 
the resurrection of the just." 

Jesus always spoke to the time, the subject, and the 
occasion. lie was the most practical preacher the 
world ever saw. His methods to-day, modified by the 



The Aristocratic Spirit not of the Gospel. 127 



different relation of the preacher to the people, the 
ruling characteristics of the age, the different ways of 
looking at things, and the different modes of expres- 
sion which exist in the world, will attract not only 
the common people who will hear gladly, but all classes, 
except those to whom the gospel is hid, because the god 
of this world hath blinded their minds. And even 
many of those will listen to a simple, natural, practi- 
cal style, accompanied by thought and fused by feel- 
ing, though the instruction condemn and alarm them. 

There is a method of reasoning called induction. 
A great number of cases are compared, and a conclu- 
sion is drawn from their similarities and the results 
with which they are attended, and a general law of 
nature or of social life is concluded from them. 
Would any one, travelling through the Christian world ? 
and observing the general conduct of those who pro- 
fess and call themselves Christians, imagine that Christ 
gave any such precept as this ? Would the process 
of induction lead to such a conclusion ? It is to be 
feared that if the New Testament were not accessible 
to one intelligent observer, and he should be compelled 
to construct Christ's teaching from a study protracted 
through many years and carried on in many countries, 
the student of his conclusions would not find anything 
analogous to this precept with its connected promises, 
among them. Nevertheless, as Christ meant what He 
said, and made such a promise, we must examine it; 
and I deem the theme proper to this occasion. 

It is a spirit which Christ inculcates ; and the 
illustration of the thing forbidden and of the thing com- 
manded is not to be interpreted as though the phrase 
were found in the ten commandments, or in a code of 
civil statutes. Our Lord's remarks concerning those 



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who sought out the chief rooms are called "a parable." 
The teaching is plain. The language is illustrative, 
and though the text is not a parable, it is marked by 
the same peculiarities of style. "When thou makest 
a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor 
thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich 
neighbors." We are not to interpret this as against 
inviting our friends, brethren, kinsmen, and neigh- 
bors to dine or sup with us. We learn from the 
Gospel by John that Jesus came to Bethany six days 
before the passover, where Lazarus was, which had 
been dead, whom he raised from the dead. There 
they made Him a supper, and Martha served, and 
Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with 
Him. Mary was there, with her pound of ointment of 
spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, 
and wiped them with her hair. Judas demanded, " Why 
was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, 
and given to the poor?" He was the antetype of em- 
bezzlers of trust funds of our day, and said this, not 
because he cared for the poor, but because he was a 
thief, and had the bag, and bore what was put therein. 
Then Jesus said, " The poor ye have always with you ; 
but me ye have not always." Now, the spirit of that 
narrative teaches us that the Lord did not mean to 
say that family and friendly feasts are in themselves 
evil, or that such interviews are not to be encouraged. 
On the other hand, when He says, "When thou mak- 
est a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the 
blind," it is not to be inferred that on all occasions are 
feasts to consist exclusively of "the poor, the maimed, 
the lame, the blind." He saw before Him an aristo- 
cratic feast, one in which chief men were bidden, from 
which the poor were excluded. The whole was an 



The Aristocratic Spirit not of the Gospel. 129 

exhibition of pride, complacency, and mutual admira- 
tion ; and then there were those that were bidden who 
marked out the chief rooms, and tried to make dis- 
tinctions among themselves. It was this exclusive 
spirit that He condemned, and the teaching is that a 
man should not spend his life among his supposed 
equals, giving and receiving, but that he should main- 
tain a living sympathy with men as men, and should 
know the blessedness of giving without the hope of 
an earthly reward; that he should not be continually 
asking, Can I make anything out of this? or, How 
will I get back the cost of this ? but recognizing vir- 
tue and practising beneficence wherever he went, 
in the spirit of the command, " Thou shalt love thy 
neighbor as thyself," or in its concrete form, "All 
things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto 
you, do ye even so unto them." 

The definite theme, therefore, which we have to 
consider is this : — 

The aristocratic spirit is neither a fruit nor a 
friend of the gospel. 

That spirit is one of personal pride, and cherished 
conscious superiority. It is not primarily in the in- 
tellect, but in the feeling, the moral nature, fed by 
certain things, the value of which, real or fictitious, 
the mind perceives, as birth, riches, abilities, learn- 
ing, achievements, social relations, or long residence. 
Thus we have persons who have nothing but their 
family name to be proud of, but of that they are as 
proud as Lucifer himself. Others have accumulated 
vast sums, and look upon those of good family with- 
out money with a species of contempt which is heart- 
ily reciprocated. Others have neither been high-born 
nor inherited or otherwise obtained wealth ; but their 



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intellectual powers are unquestioned, and their learn- 
ing and achievements distinguish them, as they 
proudly feel, from the common herd. Many, too, hold 
at a distance new-comers in town or city, and in 
countless ways exhibit their conscious superiority. 
These manifestations, called in the Gospels " the pride 
of life" and "the world" crystallize in institutions, 
in fashions, in ceremonies, and in cliques. This is a 
sufficient description, at the present stage of our dis- 
course, of the spirit which we declare to be con- 
demned in the text, and of which we more specifically 
affirm, — 

I. It is r^ot a fruit of the gospel. 

The definite statement of St, Paul is (Romans xii: 
1 6), "Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind 
not high things ; but condescend to men of low estate. 
Be not wise in your own conceits. " This defines 
the spirit condemned in the text. Observe the defi- 
nite, and yet dramatic, denunciation of it by St 
James (in the second chapter), " My brethren, have 
not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of 
glory, with respect to persons. For if there come 
unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly 
apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile 
raiment; and ye have respect to him that wearcth the 
gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a 
good place ; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, 
or sit here under my footstool : are ye not then 
partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil 
thoughts ? Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath 
not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, 
and heirs of the kingdom which He hath promised to 
them that love Him? But ye have despised the poor. 
Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before 



The Aristocratic Spirit not of the Gospel. 131 

the judgment seats ? Do not they blaspheme that 
worthy name by the which ye are called ? If ye ful- 
fil the royal law according to the Scripture, Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well : but if 
ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are 
convinced of the law as transgressors. " St. Peter in 
the First Epistle, the second chapter and seventeenth 
verse, says, " Honor all men, love the brotherhood, 
fear God, honor the king. " Fear God ; give the king, 
as God's minister for that very purpose, the special 
honor due him. Love Christians, and further, look- 
ing out upon the world, honor manhood as manhood 
wherever you find it. Robert Burns's fine passage, 

"A man's a man for a' that and a' that," 

has its germ in the gospel's utterance concerning 
this subject. Christ's precepts were always illus- 
trated by His own example. The description given in 
the thirteenth of John of our Lord's washing the disci- 
ples' feet, of the conversation between Him and Peter, 
and the specific statements of our Lord as follows : 
" So after He had washed their feet, and had taken 
His garments, and had sat down again, He said unto 
them, Know ye what I have done to you ? Ye call 
me Master and Lord ; and ye say well, for so I am. If 
I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, 
ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have 
given you an example, that ye should do as I have 
done to you, " condemn at once and forever the spirit 
which we are considering. The use made of our 
Lord's example by the apostle in the Epistle to the 
Philippians is also too plain to be misunderstood : 
" In lowliness of mind let each esteem other better 
than themselves. Look not every man upon his own 



[32 The Peoples Church Pulpit. 

things, but every man also on the things of others. 
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ 
Jesus ; who, being in the form of God, thought it 
not robbery to be equal with God ; and made Himself 
of no reputation, but took upon Him the form of a 
servant, and was made in the likeness of men ; and 
being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, 
and became subject unto death, even the death of the 
cross. ' Paul always exhibited this spirit. When 
compelled by the attacks made upon him, he said : 
" For I suppose I was not a whit behind the very 
chiefest apostles ; " but he proceeds to show that he 
had very gladly spent and been spent for them, 
though the more abundantly he loved them, the less 
he was loved. The Jewish aristocracy exhibited this 
spirit in its most offensive forms, resting it upon the 
supposed divine command. It was incapable of being 
eradicated from the spirit of St. Peter, without a 
miraculous manifestation. The tenth of Acts records 
the miraculous vision which God made the instru- 
ment of opening his eyes to the great truth that God 
is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he 
that feareth Him and worketh righteousness is ac- 
cepted with Him. The genuineness of Peter's con- 
viction was seen in his venturing to say, in answer 
to the voice which came to him, saying, "Rise, Peter; 
kill, and eat," " Not so, Lord, for I have never eaten 
anything that is common or unclean." And the 
voice spake unto him again a second time, " What 
God hath cleansed, that call not thou common ;" and 
we are told that this was done thrice, and the vessel 
was received up again into heaven. Not until the 
correspondence of the visit of the messengers from 
Cornelius with the vision did Peter understand the 



The Aristocratic Spirit not of the Gospel. 133 

purport, and confessed (as recorded in the twenty- 
eighth verse), " Ye know that it is not lawful for a 
man that is a Jew to keep company or come unto one of 
another nation, but God hath shown me that I should 
not call any man common or unclean." Who can sup- 
pose this vision to have had any other origin than the 
divine Spirit ? Who can suppose this marvellous cor- 
respondence between all the precepts of the gospel 
and the teachings here revealed, and their entire op- 
position to the existing spirit of Scribe and Pharisee 
and bigoted Jew, to have had any other source than 
that to which we attribute every ray of spiritual light 
that cometh into the world, "the true light that 
lighteth every man " ? The regenerating influence of 
the Holy Spirit in the beginning of the Christian life 
destroys the aristocratic spirit, when the eyes that 
have been red with tears of repentance are filled with 
tears of joy, when the heart that has long been bur- 
dened by the sense of guilt receives the divine com- 
forts. Philip, and the eunuch of great authority under 
Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, accepts baptism 
from the humblest follower of Christ. When Saul 
passes into the glorious liberty of God's dear children, 
he seeks those whom he persecuted: "And when 
Saul was come to Jerusalem, he essayed to join him- 
self to the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, 
and believed not that he was a disciple." On the 
day of Pentecost, " They that believed were together, 
and had all things in common. " They sold their 
possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as 
every man had need. No instance can be produced 
from the Scriptures or from modern times, nor has 
any one ever come under the observation of those to 
whom I now speak, of a genuine conversion, marked 



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by a lively hope, the love, joy, peace, and other fruits 
of the Spirit, which in its first exhibitions did not 
reveal the entire destruction of the spirit which our 
Lord condemns in the text. Subsequently men and 
women yield to the influence of former habits of 
thought, action, speech, and association ; but during 
the complete reign of the new life, when the mind is 
filled with the love of God and with the peace which 
passeth all understanding, they look upon every 
one as brother that has obtained like precious faith, 
and see beneath the roughest garments the linea- 
ments of a man in Christ Jesus. Whenever the op- 
posite spirit exists, it is no fruit of the gospel. 

II. We proceed further to show that it is no 
friend of the gospel. The aristocratic spirit is by its 
very nature one of exclusiveness. Stand off ! I am 
holier than thou. This is its most offensive form. 
Of all kinds of pride, none is so contrary to the spirit 
of the gospel as spiritual pride. Those who speak of 
their brethren as being in the lower plane, and cry, 
" The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are 
we," have been, from the times of the prophets and 
apostles until to-day, justly condemned by all discrim- 
inating minds. A number of years since, a person 
accustomed to devote her efforts to the promotion of 
the higher life at a fashionable watering-place, took 
up her residence at a hotel at some distance from 
the place of daily meeting, for this purpose. When 
asked by a friend why she did not reside upon the 
grounds, she replied, " Oh ! I am willing to work 
among those people, but I have nothing in com- 
mon with them. My associations, you know, my 
family connections, my mode of life at homo, arc 
all different from theirs. I am willing to meet 



The Aristocratic Spirit not of the Gospel. 135 

with them for Christ's sake." And yet, the per- 
sons of whom she was speaking were not the poor 
or the unknown. By many they would have been 
considered among the more aristocratic classes. It 
was simply a little difference in social position, which 
was sedulously cherished by the supposed superior. 
The highest attainments of grace show themselves 
invariably in the purest types of love and brotherly 
kindness. Stand off ! I am wiser than thou. Thou 
art not worthy to hear my thoughts. Thou hast noth- 
ing to give in return. Stand off ! I am richer than 
thou. I can buy more and keep more. My credit is 
better than thine. I will meet only those like unto 
myself. Stand off ! I have more ability than thou 
hast. My intellect is more penetrating ; my reason- 
ing powers stronger; the breadth of my conceptions 
greater. Thou art not fit for intercourse with me. 
Stand off ! My father was more honored than thine. 
My mother was of more noble birth than thy mother. 
Stand off ! My family is known ; thine is unknown. 
Stand off ! I am admitted where thou wouldst be re- 
fused. To be seen with thee would lower me. This 
is the aristocratic spirit. It is the spirit of exclu- 
siveness. 

But as it is impossible to withdraw utterly from the 
world, as there are few, especially in this country, who 
can isolate themselves entirely, it is necessary for those 
who have the aristocratic spirit to have communica- 
tions with those whom they desire to stand off. And 
when such is the case, this spirit may take one of two 
forms, according to the dispositions and circumstances 
of the persons who cherish it, and of those to whom 
it is manifested. In some cases, it assumes the arro- 
gant, dictatorial tone which crushes the weak, and 



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rouses the strong to desperate words, and often to 
desperate deeds. The weak, it must be confessed, 
succumb to a domineering assertion of superiority. 
We see men who go through the world accomplishing 
much with neither ability nor integrity. They wear 
the air, and assume the authority, of conceded su- 
premacy. It is not unpleasant to see such men, when, 
after having ridden recklessly over the prostrate forms 
of those who have seemed to be in their way, they are 
met by a force with which they are unable to cope. 
The recognized justice of their grievous humiliation 
awakens emotions not wholly unpleasant, within even 
ingenuous and elevated natures. The more ordinary 
exhibition, however, of this spirit is in the form of 
patronizing, fully as unpleasant to those who have 
to receive it, if persons of sensibility, as the other. 
It is difficult properly to represent it in words. It 
is usually accompanied by an air, and by language, not 
as a whole, or considered in parts, objectionable; but 
the spirit, or expression, or gesture, gives it its patron- 
izing appearance. An Episcopal clergyman of this 
country visited one of the most famous bishops of 
England, and presented to him a letter from an 
American bishop. The bishop read the letter with 
indifference, and having read it, looked the American 
minister in the face, and said, "And now, what can 
I do for you, sir ? " Said the American clergyman, 
" Nothing, sir; I merely called upon you, sir, out of re- 
spect to the eminent ecclesiastic of my own country, 
who, unsolicited on my part, presented me with the 
letter of introduction." The bishop saw his mistake, 
and rising, with much kindness and magnanimity apol- 
ogized for his remark. An illustration from Father 
Taylor is perhaps not unworthy of use here. An 



The Aristocratic Spirit not of the Gospel. 137 

aristocrat made a patronizing speech, in one of Fa- 
ther Taylor's meetings, of great length concerning the 
sailor. Conscious superiority beamed from his eye. 
Conscious superiority gave character to his tones. 
Self-consciousness determined every gesture. He 
loved sailors. He had a high respect for the 
men of the sea. Commerce could not survive with- 
out them, and he felt as a citizen and a merchant that 
he owed an obligation to them. When he finished, 
Father Taylor said, " If there is any other old sin- 
ner from Beacon Street here who wants to give his 
experience, he has now the opportunity." 

Since the aristocratic spirit is fed by extraneous 
and largely by social influences, one of its most offen- 
sive forms is obsequiousness to those above, and the 
same man who patronizes the person below him, flat- 
ters the individual a little above him. He who fell 
upon his knees and said to his lord, " Have mercy 
upon me, and I will pay thee all," was the same man 
who a few moments afterwards seized his fellow-ser- 
vant by the throat, and demanded of him the last 
penny. It is the manifestation of the same spirit 
that restricts the influence of many persons. Patron- 
izing is a repelling influence. A plain man invented 
a word to exp]ain why a minister of marked ability 
and of very courtly manners could not influence the 
people. When asked what he thought the difficulty 
was, he replied, " I have thought a great deal about 
it. The only difficulty seems to be, there is no mutu- 
ality about him." 

A remarkable phenomenon, which no student of 
human nature will be likely to overlook, is the possi- 
bility of a great love for humanity, or of any special 
race, as a sentiment, and no interest whatever in the 



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individual members of that race. Men have seemed 
to love mankind in masses, and devoted their lives to 
their service, who in personal intercourse exhibited a 
spirit most unlovable. 

In the operations of this spirit upon Christian effort 
and church life the effects are evil, and only evil, and 
that continually. They are seen in four forms. 

First, in the relation of sects to each other. This 
has to some extent passed away, but only as the de- 
nominations once thought inferior have risen above 
the opposition, suspicion, and isolation to which they 
were formerly subjected. It is by no means extinct 
yet, and in many towns and villages where competition 
is severe, it shows itself most clearly. It would be 
invidious and out of harmony with the jubilant char- 
acter and pervading fraternity of these services to 
particularize. No harm, however, can come from the 
statement that the spirit shows itself in the indiffer- 
ence which many societies feel toward the poor ; not 
to paupers, who may be suspected of coming for what 
they can get, in these days of national, state, and 
county tramping, and of voluntary dependence of fam- 
ilies for support, from generation to generation, upon 
begging, direct or indirect, but toward those who arc 
not possessed of position or means. It shows itself 
also in the manner in which those who begin to prosper 
in the world will go from sect to sect, hoping to get a 
higher position. A judge of very considerable ability, 
whose family in a Western city had belonged to three 
different churches, was asked if he had changed his 
principles. " Oh, no," said he. " When we first set- 
tled here, there was only one church in the town, and 
that was the Methodist. We went to it, and were 
happy enough until the Presbyterian came in. My 



The Aristocratic Spirit not of the Gospel. 139 

wife said that it was certain that they were going to 
draw the cream of the society of the place into 
their new church. They erected a better structure 
than the Methodists had, called an educated and re- 
fined minister, and a very prepossessing man. We 
joined them, and felt very happy there until the Epis- 
copalians came in . They built a very handsome Gothic 
church. My wife said that the children were just 
growing up, and that they ought to have all the ad- 
vantages of society that they could get, and in fact 
she observed that she had always liked the liturgy, 
and so, notwithstanding we had been very happy 
in the Presbyterian Church, and liked the minister 
very much, we drew out and went into the Episcopal. 
There we are now. Perhaps we shall stay there until 
we die. But I am always afraid that the Unitarians or 
somebody else will come in here, and get up a more 
select coterie, and then we will have to go ; and that," 
says the judge, "is the way it comes that I have 
changed my church relations three times without 
changing my sentiments." 

When Athanase Coquerel, fils, the noted Unita- 
rian preacher of Paris, came to this country many 
years ago, he lectured in the Cooper Institute, in the 
city of New York. At the close of the lecture, the 
Hon. Oliver Hoyt and myself went upon the platform, 
and asked M. Coquerel to lecture in a surburban town 
where we resided. He consented to do so. But 
while we were standing upon the platform, a gentle- 
man approached us and said, " Magnificent audience 
to-night ! I never saw a more intellectual audience 
in my life. Only our people could get up such an 
audience. The orthodox can do nothing with us in 
the way of intellect and culture." Deep-sealed in 



140 The Peoples Church Pulpit. 

the soul was a feeling which made him to claim all 
his superiority of intellect and culture for his way 
of thinking, and to disparage all others. 

Secondly, it shows itself in caste churches. 

Wherever a denomination becomes large enough 
to admit of several societies in the same place, 
churches will be formed whose root principle of 
difference is the spirit of caste. Location of res- 
idence may be the ostensible cause, and in some 
cases with individuals may be the sole cause ; 
but the underlying cause of the division in many 
instances seems to be a desire for social superiority, 
and intercourse upon the same plane. The Metho- 
dist denomination, in many cities of small size and 
in large country towns, exhibits the evil influence of 
this spirit. A few select people have withdrawn from 
the ordinary church, the church of the people, and 
formed a small society in which they dwell, sometimes 
in mutual admiration and peaceful slumber. Occa- 
sionally it is found, that though very small and very 
select, they contain within themselves all the elements 
of turbulence that existed when there was no division 
into separate societies. 

Thirdly, it produces great friction and many heart- 
burnings in the working of the ordinary churches. 
This spirit, like that of vanity, can be exhibited in 
any grade of society. The Hottentot who has one 
red ribbon more than another Hottentot has the same 
spirit which dwells in the breast of the Parisian lady, 
or the Saratoga belle, who surpassed in her attire and 
diamonds every other woman at the ball. The great- 
est evils do not always come from the haughty spirit 
of the very rich, but from the aversion and arrogance 



The Aristocratic Spirit not of the Gospel. 141 

and the contempt of the different grades in which so- 
ciety is so naturally divided, — the treatment given by 
the man who lives in the two-story house to the man 
who lives in the one-story house ; the sneer of the 
woman whose dress cost fifty dollars, as she passes 
the woman whose dress is worth but twenty-five 
dollars. Human nature is the same in all classes 
and conditions. 

The fourth form in which this spirit obstructs the 
progress of the gospel is by its influence upon what 
is called mission work in the great cities. Mission 
work is generally done upon a principle which im- 
plies the superiority of the missionary and those 
whom he relieves or instructs. It should be done on 
the great equalizing principle illustrated in the text. 
When it is so done, missions soon cease to be such, 
and become self-supporting churches. 

Two further remarks, and I am through with this 
discussion. It might be supposed that the republi- 
can form of government would reduce to its lowest 
forms the aristocratic spirit. Here is no hereditary 
aristocracy ; here no monopoly of the soil, such at 
least as exists in the empires of the old world. But 
in our sister republic of Switzerland, on the other 
side of the Atlantic, and in this republic, the aristo- 
cratic spirit is manifested as offensively and unchris- 
tianly as in any part of the world where the gospel 
has ever been preached. Radically, it is the same 
spirit which exists in India, — the pride of wealth, 
the pride of family connections, the pride of superior 
acquirements, the pride of classes. Four forms of 
aristocracy can be found in every old New England 
town, while in Switzerland every community is prac- 



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tically divided into castes with well-defined laws, 
showing the influence in marriage in or out upon the 
male or female of these circles. 

The second remark is, that the colored people since 
the war have illustrated on a large scale the same 
spirit. If we take the city of Washington as an ex- 
ample, where the largest proportion of colored peo- 
ple can be found, we can find there three orders of 
society as hostile to each other, on grounds of as- 
sumed superiority, as can be found anywhere. The 
colored people of wealth and education form a select 
circle. They have churches as exclusive, and as 
thoroughly under the influence of caste-spirit, as any 
that can be found among the whites ; who speak as 
contemptuously of what they call the lower stratum 
of their own race as the most affected and arrogant 
among the whites. 

By this time the question may arise, Is there not 
a difference ? Is there not such a thing as dignity ? 
Is there not such a thing as superiority of family ? 
Is there not such a thing as true refinement ? Un- 
questionably, there is. Unquestionably, in forming 
social and especially matrimonial relations, .these are 
proper subjects to be taken into the most serious 
consideration. But the highest refinement, pervaded 
by the Christian spirit, never exhibits a sense of this 
difference. The highest refinement can bear contact 
with men and women of any class. Only a spurious 
refinement and a tottering dignity require offensive 
self-assertion. There is a difference in our children. 
Some are brighter, some more prepossessing, than 
others ; but the loving heart of the true father or 
mother never reveals the consciousness of this fact. 



The Aristocratic Spirit not of the Gospel. 143 

Only evil persisted in can make any difference in the 
treatment which we give our children. 

You have named your church the People's Church. 
Its true foundation is in the text. But neither your 
name, your history, your purposes, nor your hopes, 
nor all combined, can save you from going the way 
of other congregations, unless you are willing to pay 
the price of eternal vigilance. In all your inter- 
course as members of the church and congregation, 
you must contend against the growth and manifesta- 
tion of the aristocratic spirit. The ruling bodies of 
the local church are in a sense aristocratic bodies. 
The trustee, the steward, the class-leader, the vestry- 
man, the members of the session or consistory, or 
by whatsoever name these boards may be known, 
have a constant tendency to feel themselves rulers ; 
and a spirit imperceptibly takes possession of them 
which becomes a wall of separation between them 
and the church. 

Prosperity of individuals produces the same result. 
The great need of the church here and elsewhere is 
men who can prosper in this world's goods, feel that 
they are prospering, yet be grateful and humble, live 
in a moderate way, and never exhibit a sense of supe- 
riority to the humblest and poorest Christian with 
whom they may be brought in contact. But espe- 
cially is the great demand of the church, women, who, 
as they prosper, and are able to indulge in decora- 
tions of person, in entertainments, in pictures, in dis- 
play of all kinds, will practise becoming moderation, 
striking the beautiful mean of true refinement, which 
is midway between the gaudy display now so com- 
mon, and the miserly economy which continues after 



144 



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its necessity has passed away ; men who can shake 
the poor man warmly by the hand ; women who can 
smile from the heart, and not from the lips only. The 
politeness of the politician is proverbial : he has an 
end to gain, he is polite to all. Similar manifesta- 
tions should spring from the Christian heart. Said a 
lady of wealth to a woman poor, but not of the poor- 
est, " I wish you were poorer or richer. If you were 
poorer, I should visit you as often as I pleased. If 
you were richer, I should visit you as often as I 
pleased." There was the aristocratic spirit moving 
with the Christian spirit. May the Christian spirit 
pervade this church and congregation whose home is 
now completed, and its success will be the wonder of 
the city and of the age ! When the world presents its 
charms, and the tendency to cxclusiveness is devel- 
oped, let your constant thought be, "They cannot 
recompense thee, but thou shalt be recompensed 
at the resurrection of the just." Think of it ! The 
honors of this world, the flattery of sinners, the con- 
descension of superiors, — what are these in com- 
parison with the words of Him, who, though He was 
rich, yet for our sakes became poor ? " They cannot 
recompense thee, but thou shalt be recompensed at 
the resurrection of the just." 



THURSDAY EVENING. 



SPIRITUAL POWER. 



The Rev. O. P. GIFFORD. 



SPIRITUAL POWER. 



" But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come 
upon you ; and ye shall be witnesses unto me." — Acts i. 8. 

There are two questions of prime importance in 
mechanics, and in the mental and spiritual world. 
The first is a question of power, the second is a ques- 
tion of the right use of power. It marks a crisis in 
a child's life when he learns the meaning and use of 
his own muscles, when he decides his points of con- 
tact with the earth by two, and walks in place of 
creeping. It is a great step in the forward march of 
the race when man masters the beast of burden, and 
is carried without weariness to himself. The circle 
of which man is the centre widens with every new 
mastery of power. The winds row his boats, the 
rushing rivers grind his grain, fire and water, yoked 
together, haul his freight, the lassoed lightnings carry 
his messages. Next to the question of how to get 
power, lies the question of the right use of power. 
One had better creep all his days than have the up- 
right body degrade the mind ; it is safer to be a pil- 
grim and a burden-bearer than to be hurried on by 
a runaway horse, better to row upon the surface of 
the water than to be buried by raging winds in the 
depths of the sea. A river, like Samson, may grind 
grain for a season, and then, laying hold of the pillars, 
destroy the very lives it has been strengthening. 

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Pi wer is one thing, the right use of power quite 
another. 

In the mental world the great problem for educa- 
tion is the realization of its own name, the leading 
forth of the natural powers of man. From Kinder- 
garten to University, the question is how to get power, 
to make the mind bring forth, as the Almighty made 
the earth bring forth in the dawn of the world's day. 
Education gives power, but fails to give power over 
power, or to teach the right use of power ; too often 
it is like the prism, breaking up mental energy into 
beautiful colors, broadening taste at the expense of 
power. The world needs sun-glasses, not prisms ; 
concentration, not diffusion of mental energy. A 
liberal education may give both temper and edge to 
the mind, but leave the man, like the ape with the 
razor, to cut his own throat through lack of knowl- 
edge as to the right use of power. Intellect without 
moral sense is devilish, mental power without moral 
balance is satanic. The sins that shame us for our 
kind are committed by ignorance, the crimes that 
startle, by knowledge. In mind, as in mechanics, the 
first question is one of power, the second, the right 
use of power. 

Stepping into the holy of holies of human life, we 
find the same problem facing us, how to get spir- 
itual power, how to use it properly. The one lack 
of the Christian church, to-day, is lack of spiritual 
power. Architecture, art, eloquence, music, all wait 
upon the church, but the church lacks power in and 
over the world. Peter said, " Silver and gold have I 
none: but such as I have give I thee: In the name 
of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." We 
repeat the story, but not the sign fight; spiritual cue- 



Spiritual Power. 



1 49 



mies with intellectual weapons ; rehearse historic vic- 
tories in the face of present enemies, have what Peter 
had not, lack what Peter had ; but our hands in our 
pockets and give, money in place of putting our hands 
out and giving power, but we cannot give what we 
have not. We buy crutches, but keep the cripples, 
build asylums, but keep the cripples, give what we 
have, keep the sufferings we find, lack power. 

It is a great step toward getting power when we 
feel the lack. " Blessed are they which do hunger and 
thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled;" 
a sense of want is the key to the divine plenty. 
" Ask, and it shall be given you ; seek, and ye shall 
find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto you ; " ask- 
ing, seeking, knocking, all these are but expressions 
of lack. The Laodicean Church was lukewarm, be- 
cause it felt no lack, saying, "I am rich, and in- 
creased in goods, and have need of nothing." 

The sense of need is the soul's answer to God's 
plenty; the sense of weakness, the first condition of 
power. "Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory 
in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest 
upon me." 

The next step toward the possession of power is a 
knowledge of the lines along which it works, the laws 
according to which it moves and acts. Knowledge 
of the laws of any force, obedience to those laws, 
brings the force obedient to the knowing, obedient 
one. 

Long and patient study has given to men domin- 
ion over many of the forces of nature and science ; 
but in the realm of the spiritual, we are as yet in 
our infancy. " The wind bloweth where it listeth, and 
thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell 



The People's CJiurch Pulpit. 



whence it cometh, and whither it goeth ;" the wind 
is the type of vagrancy. " The wind goeth toward the 
south, and turneth about unto the north ; it whirleth 
about continually, and the wind returneth again 
according to His circuits." Science tells us that the 
winds are under law, she has found the yEolus of 
whom Virgil sang, and can tell whence and whither 
the winds blow. So we shall find spiritual power is 
under law. At present we act as though we thought 
it fitful, variable, accidental. In developing a farm 
we go through certain well-ordered changes, cut down 
the trees, destroy the roots, plow and harrow the soil, 
sow the seed, expect a harvest. In developing a 
child we study the child, work along the laws of its 
physical and mental powers, and expect certain re- 
sults. In spiritual affairs we hope, and trust, and 
believe, and wait, " the wind bloweth, where it list- 
eth," but we emphasize the "listeth" and hope the 
Spirit will touch those we love, and not the " blow- 
eth," and work with Him. The thought is of intens- 
est activity, not of choosing to blow fitfully. He 
operates, let us cooperate. 

We get at the law of any force or power by study- 
ing the manifestation of the force or power. There 
are two manifestations of the Spirit in the New Tes- 
tament ; by the study of these we may learn the con- 
ditions of getting spiritual power. 

First, when the Spirit came upon Christ. 

Second, when the Spirit was poured out upon the 
disciples. 

Christ stands out in human history distinct from 
His fellows in spiritual power. We do not think of 
Him as strong physically, or mighty mentally. As 
the sun suffuses the atmosphere, lifts the mountains 



Spiritual Power. 



into prominence, reveals the sea, clothes nature with 
life, even so the Christ saturated man's mental life 
with spiritual light, lifted the Law into prominence, 
flashed across the prophecies, clothed the race with a 
new life. " In Him was life ; and the life was the 
light of men," and the light was in turn the life of 
men. He did for human thought what God did for 
the red dust in the Garden of Eden, breathed into it 
the breath of life, and made a living soul of it ; He in- 
spired, or inbreathed, a spiritual energy into thoughts 
that had been the property of the race for centuries. 
Christ's power dates from the banks of the Jordan. 
His life up to His baptism is not worth recording ; the 
birth, the circumcision, the flight into Egypt, the visit 
to the Temple, a gradual growth into favor with God 
and man, barest outlines. He is known as the son of 
Joseph, eren John did not know Him until the Spirit 
descending made Him known. But from that hour 
He had power over Satan in the desert, and in the 
lives of men, power to heal lepers, give sight to the 
blind, hearing to the deaf, life to the dead ; power to 
speak words that have flamed in the dome of human 
thought as stars do at midnight in the blue above us. 
The Spirit was given to Him without measure. The 
two simple conditions were obedience and prayer. 
When John protested against baptizing one better 
than himself, Jesus replied, " Suffer it to be so now ; 
for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness." 
It was a part of God's commandments, and Christ, 
" though a Son, yet learned He obedience, by the 
things that He , suffered." "He was obedient unto 
death." "It is my meat and my drink to do my 
Father's will." The key to that wonderful prayer 
taught the disciples is " Thy will be done." The 



152 The Peoples Church Pulpit. 

one purpose that runs through all Christ's mission, 
the backbone of His life, into which gathered all the 
system of thought and action, suffering and doing, 
was the steady, persistent will to do God's will, obe- 
dience to God's law. 

The second condition was prayer. "Jesus, being 
baptized and praying, the heaven was opened, and 
the Holy Ghost descended in bodily shape like a 
dove upon Him." Upon the praying Christ the Spirit 
descends, upon the praying Christ the Spirit abides. 
When He would have wisdom to choose His followers, 
He prays ; when He is wearied He prays ; He was 
transfigured while praying ; angels ministered to Him 
in Gethsemane while praying. Obedience and prayer, 
then, are the two hinges upon which turns the door 
through which comes the Holy Spirit into the life of 
Christ, bringing power. 

We turn now to a study of the outpouring of the 
Spirit upon the disciples on the day of Pentecost. 

Just before His ascension Christ said to the eleven, 
" Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be en- 
dued with power from on high." Returning to the 
sacred city, they tarried. The world waited in wicked- 
ness. Judaism went through its weary routine of 
lifeless formalism ; Rome trod the wine-press, crush- 
ing out human life beneath her heavy tread : the only 
hope lay in the heart of the little band of Christ's 
followers, but they tarried — simple obedience to the 
known will of Christ. 

They prayed. " These all continued with one accord 
in prayer and supplication." "And when the day of 
Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one 
accord in one place. And suddenly there came a 
sound from heaven, as of a rushing, mighty wind, and 



Spiritual Power. 



153 



it filled all the house where they were sitting, and 
there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of 
fire, and it sat upon each of them, and they were all 
filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with 
other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." 

Upon obedient, praying disciples of Christ, the 
Spirit came. We have here, then, in two different 
cases, the Holy Spirit coming in power, upon the 
same conditions. A moment's thought will show us 
how thoroughly scientific this is. Obedience to nat- 
ural law, " communion with Nature, in her visible 
forms," gives to men the mystery of her power. 
Newton discovers the law of gravitation, Watt 
masters steam, Franklin captures the lightning, 
Edison controls electricity, by obeying law and com- 
muning with Nature. Dominion over the forces of 
earth, sea, and sky are conditioned upon obedience 
to law, and communion with the forces that work 
according to law. So in the spiritual realm, power 
comes to the soul obedient to God, in prayerful com- 
munion with God. This cannot be otherwise. To 
confer spiritual power upon the disobedient would be 
to confirm disobedience, and risk the abuse and 
misuse of power. Such power cannot, in the nature 
of things, be given to the soul out of sympathy with 
God. Obedience and prayer, then, are the conditions 
of gaining spiritual power. 

Power possessed may be used as one pleases in 
mechanics and in mind. One may manufacture what 
he will in one case, or choose his calling or profession 
in the other ; but spiritual power cannot be turned 
aside from its own proper use, indeed, cannot be used 
at all, but uses the one upon whom it comes. Man 
cannot use spiritual power, but must be used by it. 



154 The Peoples Church Pulpit. 



It is said of Christ, after the descent of the Spirit, 
"And immediately the Spirit driveth Him into the 
wilderness." There was a "must needs" in all the 
life of Christ, after the Spirit came upon Him. The 
promised Comforter had His office work clearly out- 
lined by the Master : " He shall teach you all things, 
and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever 
I have said unto you"; "He shall testify of mc"; 
"He will guide you into all truth "; "He shall glorify 
mc"; "Ye shall be my witnesses." All the power 
of the Spirit ia to be put forth to witness to Jesus 
Christ. He is not promised to restore bodily health, 
to give mental grip, but to witness for Christ. If 
health is needful for that end, then health will be 
given ; if mental power, then mental power will be 
given ; but the mission of the Spirit is to witness to 
Christ, spiritual power is power to witness for Christ. 

Life is of little worth, except as it witnesses to 
something better and nobler than itself. Martin 
Luther is lifted into prominence by the rising tide of 
the Protestant Reformation. Oliver Cromwell is 
held in place by the principles he adopted. Abraham 
Lincoln is known as the emancipator of African 
slaves ; Wendell Phillips, as the champion of the 
oppressed, standing four-square and twelve-gated to 
the weary and heavy-laden of every color and race. 
It is only as the single life becomes identified with, 
stands for, witnesses to, some mighty principle of 
righteousness that it is lifted as a beacon above the 
surging tide, and flashes its light across the waves 
that sob about it, dash against it, and sing its praises. 

Spiritual power is power to witness for Christ, the 
" Sun of Righteousness." Willingness to do this, 
shown in obedience and prayer, will bring the power: 
unwillingness forfeits it. 



Spiritual Power. 



i55 



This matter of witnessing is to take the whole life. 
"The salt of the earth" witnesses whenever it pre- 
serves ; "the light of the world" witnesses when- 
ever it shines; "the leaven" witnesses whenever 
it lifts the meal. Peter could not open his mouth to 
deny Christ without witnessing to his Galilean birth 
and breeding. " Let your conversation be seasoned 
with salt." Of the worthies who lived by faith, the 
inspired writer says, they " confessed that they were 
strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that 
say such things declare plainly that they seek a 
country." 

In the home, kitchen, nursery, or parlor ; in the 
store, running errands, or as a partner ; on the street, 
coming and going ; at the poles, voting ; in the 
market-place, bu3 r ing and selling, — " ye shall be wit- 
nesses unto Me." A printed page bears witness to 
the art of printing as truly as a volume. A single 
leaf testifies to life in the tree as truly as the close- 
grained limb. A cup of cold water, in the name of 
Christ, tells the world of Him as truly as the tomb 
of Joseph, or the hundred-weight of spices of Nico- 
demus. 

A little boy about ten years old was standing be- 
fore a shoe-store in Broadway, barefooted, peering 
through the window and shivering with cold. A 
lady, riding up the street in a beautiful carriage, 
drawn by horses finely caparisoned, observed the lit- 
tle fellow in his forlorn condition, and immediately 
ordered the driver to draw up and stop in front of 
the store. The lady, richly dressed in silk, alighted 
from her carriage, and went quietly to the boy, and 
said : " My little fellow, why are you looking so earn- 
estly in that window?" "I was just asking God to 



The People s Church Pulpit. 



give me a pair of shoes," was his reply. The lady 
took him by the hand and went into the store, and 
asked the proprietor if he would allow one of his 
clerks to go and buy her a half-dozen pairs of stock- 
ings for the boy. He readily assented. She then 
asked him if he could give her a basin of water and 
a towel, and he replied, " Certainly," and quickly 
brought them to her. 

She took the little fellow to the back part of the 
store, and, removing her gloves, knelt down, washed 
those little feet, and dried them with the towel. 

By this time the young man had returned with the 
stockings. Placing a pair upon his feet, she pur- 
chased and gave him a pair of shoes, and tying up 
the remaining pairs of stockings gave them to him, 
and patting him on the head said : " I hope, my little 
fellow, that you now feel more comfortable." 

As she turned to go, the astonished lad caught her 
hand, and looking up in her face, with tears in his 
eyes, answered her question with these words : " Are 
you God's wife ? " 

No ! she was not God's wife, but " a member in 
particular" of the church, the Bride of Christ. And 
as the Master girded His loins and washed His disci- 
ples' feet, so she witnessed to Christ by repeating 
the act, urged on by the same Spirit that abode in 
Him. 

A Brahmin convert to Christ had officiated at 
a wedding. A sudden sickness came on before he 
had signed the marriage certificate. " Just your name, 
brother," they said, as they put the paper under his 
hand, and the pen between his fingers. 

" Name ? " said the dying man, " name ? There is 



Spiritual Power. 



157 



none other name under heaven given among men 
whereby we must be saved." 

" Yes ; but we want your own name. Quick ! write 
it!" 

" My name ? I have none other name than the 
Lamb's name, written in my forehead." 

The pen moved ; the hand dropped ; the spirit was 
gone. They looked, and he had written "Jesus." 

So, O Lord Jesus, would we, possessed by the 
Holy Spirit, witness unto Thee in our life, witness 
unto Thee in our death. We give to Thee this church 
building. Fill it with the Spirit, " make it none other 
than the house of God, the very gate of heaven," a 
witness for Thee ! We give to Thee ourselves, — our 
bodies to be temples for the indwelling of thy Holy 
Spirit, our minds to think Thy thoughts after Thee, 
our spirits to be possessed by Thee, that we may re- 
ceive power from the Holy Ghost coming upon us, 
making us witnesses unto Thee ! 



FRIDAY EVENING. 



MYSTERIES SOLVED. 



The Rev. J. O. PECK, D. D. 



MYSTERIES SOLVED. 



" If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, wheth« 
er it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." — John vii : 17. 

I find myself in the world a living enigma. I am a 
bundle of mysteries. The strangest of all these mys- 
teries that everywhere environ me is that I am a 
thinking mystery. There is something within me 
that perceives, reasons, feels, desires, wills. There is 
an intelligent engineer within, who directs and drives 
this engine of wonderful mechanism. It is a think- 
ing machine. I can examine and study myself, 
which, so far as is known, no other order of being of 
this world can do. I notice that I am curiously and 
wonderfully made. There is such a wise adaptation 
of all the parts of my body for every delight and ser- 
vice. I can do so many strange arid enjoy so many 
agreeable things. (Please understand that the pro- 
noun I means man generally, and not the speaker.) 

(1.) My hand has such cunning arts. I can dig gold 
fiom the mountain, smelt it and fashion it into a crown 
for my brow, and men call me a king. I can extract 
pigments from the earth and sea, blend them in won- 
drous colors on the canvas, creating paintings which 
kings and princes shall vie with each other to pos- 
sess. ' I can make the piano or organ, the harp or 
cornet, and then sweep the keys or strings with such 
divine sorcery of music that intelligent audiences are 



1 62 The People s Church Pulpit. 

spellbound by my magic touch, or break into wild 
rapture over my deft fingers. Who designed such a 
marvellous instrument as the human hand ? It made 
the Strasburg clock, fashioned the Milan Cathedral, 
sculptured the statues of Apollo Belvidere and Ve- 
nus de Milo, painted the great paintings in the Sis- 
tine Chapel and the dome of St. Peter's, built that 
modern dragon, the locomotive, whose breath of fire 
flashes upon the air, as he races with the whirlwind 
and thunders over the trembling earth, wove the land 
and the ocean-bed with the electric nerves that thrill 
distant nations with neighborly intercourse, and cre- 
ated and lifted in mid-air that wonderful gossamer 
structure, the Brooklyn Bridge. But the human hand, 
that created all these mighty works, is itself a greater 
work of genius than all its achievements. I wonder 
not that Sir Charles Bell wrote one of the great 
Bridgewater Treatises on "The Human Hand, its 
Mechanism and Vital Energies," as one of the mas- 
terly proofs of design in the wisdom and power of the 
Creator. The human hand, which is such a marvel- 
lous proof of design as to show forth the creative 
power and glory of God, may well arrest the attention 
of man to one of the mysteries of his being. 

(2.) Look in the mirror. See your eye. It is the 
most wonderful single piece of mechanism in the 
world ; it is the masterpiece of the Creator. There 
are glorious and wonderful things to see in the world, 
but the most amazing sight that one ever sees is the 
human eye, that sees all the other wonders of crea- 
tion. It has eight hundred contrivances in its mar- 
vellous mechanism. It opens and closes automatic- 
ally its eyelid windows 30,000 times a day. The iris, 
the delicate curtain surrounding the pupil, is self-ad- 



Mysteries Solved. 



163 



justing to greater or less light, to the effulgence of 
the midday or the darkness of the midnight. On 
its retina are gathered the rays of light, making per- 
fect photographs of all objects of vision, which are 
transmitted along the optic nerve to the brain in pic- 
tures on which the mind ever feasts and delights. 
The eye has that microscopic power that at one mo- 
ment it can see the point of a cambric needle, and 
the next moment that telescopic power that it can 
gaze 95,000,000 of miles away upon the burning disc 
of the sun. This eye is the mirror of the soul. 
Every emotion of the heart flashes on the eye as 
lightning on the cloud. How the eye can flash with 
the fire of indignation, burn with enthusiasm, melt 
with tenderness, stare with fright, leer with villany, 
glower with revenge, twinkle with mirth, and beam 
with the celestial light of love ! It can charm away 
the timidity of a little child, and the next instant 
transfix the Bengal tiger till it slinks away beneath 
its gaze. Pause in wonder before the human eye ! 
Pause in greater wonder before Him who made it! 
" He that formed the eye, shall He not see ? " " For 
the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the 
whole earth. The eyes of the Lord are in every 
place, beholding the evil and the good." Beneath 
those eyes which are a flame of fire, may we ever live 
in the solemn thought, "Thou God seest me." 

(3.) Lay your hand upon your heart. It is the 
most wonderful and most powerful engine of its di- 
mensions in the world. It is a little thing, only five 
by three inches in size. It beats over 100,000 times 
a day, and forces above two ounces of blood at eveiy 
throb through seven miles of veins, or lifts seven tons 
a day ; in each year of your life it performs the work 



164 



The People s CJiurcJi Pulpit. 



of lifting 2,600 tons, and if you live to seventy years, 
1 80,000 tons. What a wonderful engine of life ! 
What a mystery within us ! 

(4.) The air cells of your lungs, if spread out here 
to-night, would make a surface of more than 20,000 
square inches. (5.) Your nerves are more than 
10,000,000 in number. (6.) The pores, or sweating- 
tubes of the skin, are 3,000 to the square inch, each 
of which is a little tile drain, one quarter of an inch 
in length. If all these 30,000,000 of pores in the 
human body were placed in a line, they would make 
a tile drain for carrying off the effete matter of 
the human system forty miles in length. These are 
but suggestions, hints of the wonderful mysteries 
that are wrapt up in the human body, and they force 
from our lips the exclamation of David, " I will praise 
Thee, O Lord, for I am fearfully and wonderfully 
made ; marvellous are Thy works, and that my soul 
knoweth full well." 

(7.) But there are deeper mysteries than these. 
How came I to exist ? Who invented this complex 
and transcendent organization, and fashioned the 
mysterious whole of my body ? 

" I wonder at myself, and in myself am lost." 

I wake up in existence one day, and discover most 
astonishing things above, beneath, and around me. 
I see mysteries everywhere, I hear mysteries with 
every throb of the ear drum. I meet mysteries with 
every glance of my thought. What is this mysterious 
thing which men call life ? Whence is it ? Scientists 
have never been able to produce it, knowledge has 
never been able to find its origin. What is this stu- 
pendous thing which men call the world ? J low came 
it to exist ? Who made it ? What docs it mean? 



Mysteries Solved. 



i6 5 



I throw out tentacles and attach myself to the 
world in business activities, in study, in family life, 
in the bonds of friendship. I became related to a 
thousand things about me. My life becomes a web 
woven by a myriad shuttles. This web is a mystery. 
I love and fear and hate, and feel the sense of moral 
obligation. I love my friends, I long for their socie- 
ty, their presence is my happiness. 

But one day my friend next door suddenly drops on 
the street ; he breathes not, he speaks not, he knows 
me no more. His body is taken up, carefully shroud- 
ed, coffined, buried. They say he is dead. What 
is death ? Here is a new mystery which sends a 
shudder through my inmost being, and fills me with 
unspeakable solemnity. Soon my mother sickens, 
wastes with consumption, or burns with fever, and 
dies. She is gone, where is she ? My heart cries 
out, " Mother, oh, mother ! " I instinctively feel she is 
somewhere, but I cannot find her. What does death 
mean ? I am beside myself with eagerness to know 
what becomes of my friends after death. Who can 
tell me ? 

I have an instinct that there is Some One who is 
over all and behind all these mysteries. The con- 
stitution of my mind compels me to cognize a cause 
behind every effect. I have an instinctive idea that 
there is a great First Cause of all things, a Supreme 
Being, an Almighty controller and governor, — God. I 
cannot see Him, and yet I believe that He exists. I 
want to know Him. The conviction possesses me 
that I hold important relations to Him. How can I 
become acquainted with Him? Here is a deeper 
mystery still. 

I have a profound feeling of ought in my inmost 



The Peoples Church Pulpit 



being. I feel that I ought to do certain things, and 
that I ought not to do certain other things. What 
makes me feel so deeply this sense of obligation ? 
When I do what I ought, I have emotions of pleasure, 
happiness, approbation. When I do what I know I 
ought not, I am filled with emotions of unrest, disap- 
proval, and remorse. There is a monitor in my 
breast that will not keep still ; it keeps talking with 
me ; it approves or disapproves all I say or do. What 
is this mysterious supreme judge, that sits in judg- 
ment within me ? 

I still further have an idea of accountability. I 
cannot escape the conviction that what I do here is 
of vast significance to my welfare. There is an 
irresistible fore-looking in my soul to something to 
come. I somehow cannot feel that the present life is 
all. Something assures me that I am to exist 
after the present life. What lies behind that myste- 
rious feeling ? I am shaken to the depths of my 
being with the sense of accountability in a world 
that is out of sight. 

Oh, what is the meaning of all these mysteries that 
meet man at every step of his being ? Who will ex- 
plain them to me ? Life, death, sin, ought, accounta- 
bility, God, — who will unravel these mysteries? 
This is our profound and overwhelming theme. 
This is the profound and overwhelming theme that 
meets every man who thinks. My theme to-night is, 

MAN'S MYSTERIES AND GOD'S SOLUTION. 

I look within myself, but get no satisfactory answers 
to my queries. I ask the philosophers and men of 
learning. They guess different solutions, but I dare 
not trust my soul to a guess. I press the keys of 



Mysteries Solved. 



167 



every science and of all knowledge, but receive no 
coherent reply ; there is only a muttering of words 
without meaning. I turn from all the research with- 
in myself, and within the range of human thought, in 
despair. I instinctively lift my imploring gaze to 
heaven, for I have an instinct that the solution of 
these mysteries must come from above, from God. 
But the heavens are silent, and give no reply. Is 
there no answer ! I must know, or I shall die. The 
man who has not throbbed with that agony has never 
yet thought deeply concerning the mysteries of man 
and his destiny. 

But look ! there is a glory, gleaming in the 
heavens. Listen ! there are unearthly voices in 
the air, there are celestial messengers speaking to 
me, and to every man who is torn by the awful 
mysteries which press upon him, and which find no 
solution, and they speak in tones so sweet, so com- 
forting, so assuring, that they sink through the ear 
into the heart, and I am entranced as with the charm 
of music. " We bring unto you good tidings of great 
joy ! Unto you is born this day in Bethlehem a 
Saviour." 

" From heaven He came, of heaven He spoke. 
To heaven He led His followers' way." 

At His installation the door of heaven swung open, 
and God stood in the portals of the sky and intro- 
duced Him to the world : " This is my well-beloved 
Son, in whom I am well pleased ; hear ye Him." 
And all the devout men and women of the ages, and 
even devils, have repeated this confession of faith in 
Him, " Thou art a Teacher come from God." Now 
how shall \ know the truth from this Teacher ? A 



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Book is put into my hand containing His wonderful 
words, and the words of His prophets and messengers. 
"For to Him give all the prophets witness." The 
Book comes to me as a revelation from God. " God, 
who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in 
times past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in 
these last days spoken unto us by His Son." Through 
the prophets and through His Son, God hath spoken 
unto us in this Book. Now I shall know the truth 
from God. What a condescension ! God speaks to 
me in answer to my deep questionings about the 
mysteries that oppress my thought and being. I 
have the explanation from Him. Wonderful book 
certainly ! I wonder not that men and women have 
given up all other treasures, given up life itself, 
rather than give up such a Book. I wonder not that 
they rotted in dungeons, or burned at the stake, 
rather than deny the knowledge of the truth as it is 
in Jesus Christ. 

I open reverently its pages. Its first paragraph 
clears up one mystery. " In the beginning God 
created the heavens and the earth." The world 
around me, then, was formed by His hand. The little 
scientists of earth have caught some glimmering of 
His processes in creation, and are wild with their 
self-important guesses. They shout, " Eureka ! Eu- 
reka ! Evolution! Evolution!" But that scientific 
gibberish docs not touch the borders of the phrase 
u in the beginning." God is the Author and Maker 
of creation, whatever has been His method. Man, 
whom we find so fearfully and wonderfully made, 
was not developed, we find by this Book, from some 
zoological garden, but was made by God, in His like- 
ness, in the Garden of Eden, This hand and eye and 



Mysteries Solved. 



heart have God for their Author. This intelligent 
soul is not a development from the chimpanzee, but 
the endowment of the omnipotent Creator. The 
mystery of man's origin is cleared up in the Book ; 
and as men of science and earthly wisdom get the 
earthly fog out of their minds, they will come to let 
in a little of the light of God's word, and the old Book 
will stand as the sun to 

" give a light to every age ; 
It gives, but borrows none." 

The great spiritual facts in man's history are ex- 
plained by the same divine Teacher. How is it that 
all men are sinful, have sinful natures, tend to evil 
rather than good? The Book explains. The first 
pair sinned against God, and by their sin lapsed, and 
their natures became sinful. Their children were 
born with the same morally lapsed natures, and so 
from parent to child, age after age, a sinful nature is 
transmitted, That all men have sinful natures is 
proven by the fact that all men have sometimes done 
what they knew was not right and holy in the sight 
of God. All men sinning, proves that all men have 
lapsed and sinful natures. The Book explains the 
mystery of sin as the result of inherited evil nature, 
and the facts of human history attest that all men 
are sinful. We are not responsible for this inherited 
sinful nature, but only for our actual transgressions. 

This idea of ought or accountability, which is so 
deeply implanted in my being, is explained in the 
Book as my obligation to obey and love Him who 
made me, and who has a right to command my obe- 
dience. But I have sinned against God, and I am told 
that "the soul that sinneth it shall die." I am not 



170 The People s Church Pulpit. 

fit to dwell in the midst of holy beings, and in the 
presence of a holy God. How can I be made holy, 
and fit for heaven ? How can I be saved from the 
guilt and penalty and power of sin ? The book tells 
me that "God so loved the world, that He gave His 
only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him 
should not perish, but have everlasting life." A Sav- 
iour, then, has come to save me from the ruin and 
the penalty and the power of sin. This ruin of sin 
may be averted by my acceptance of this Saviour. 
God freely pardons, I am told, all that come to Him 
through His dear Son. 

Human life, which seemed a mystery, this Book 
unfolds to me as my probation, and my only proba- 
tion; a period where I may repent of sin, be forgiven, 
be cleansed, be made a new creature in Christ Jesus, 
be sanctified and made holy, and thus fitted for the 
blessedness of the beatific state. This life, in its 
meaning, is intelligently explained to me in the Book. 
Death, that terror of all mysteries, is by the Book re- 
vealed to be simply the door by which I pass out of 
this world into eternity. The curtain concealing the 
hereafter is rolled up by this Book, and I am assured 
that beyond the grave I am to live forever. The 
Book tells me over and over a thousand times that 
God loves me, and wants to bless me, and save me, 
that He may enrich me with the fulness of His own 
being, and pour into me the blessedness of a heavenly 
state, if I will accept and believe on the Lord Jesus 
Christ. If I refuse to take up my cross and follow 
Him, I shall be punished by exclusion from His pres- 
ence forever. 

This is a marvellous Book, certainly, and reveals 
great and glorious truths. But is the Book true ? 



Mysteries Solved. 



i;i 



Does God actually save men from their sins, and give 
them a positive knowledge of the truth of Christian- 
ity ? How am I to know that this wonderful doctrine 
of the Book is true ? I want no guess ; I must have 
certainty. The Book bears credentials of its being 
from God that are overwhelming. It is authentic and 
genuine by many infallible proofs. 

i. Prophecies of future contingent events, which 
only God could have foreknown, have been fulfilled 
precisely as foretold in the Book. This is one cre- 
dential. 2. Miracles, which could have been wrought 
only by divine power, were wrought in attestation of 
the Book. They were many and irresistible in their 
demonstration. This is another proof. 3. The mor- 
al and religious truths in the Book are so superior to 
any system of truth ever set forth in the sacred books 
of human origin as to prove by their pre-eminence 
that the Book came from God. This is another proof. 
4. The transcendent life of Jesus Christ, which fills 
and illuminates and glorifies the Book as its central 
truth, so girds the Book with divine proof that it is 
from God, that all candid doubt is banished. 5. The 
Book speaks to my heart with such adaptation to 
meet ail the wants of my soul which God created, 
that I am sure that whoever made me, made the Bible 
for me. 6. In the eighteen hundred years of the 
beneficent, elevating, transforming influence of Chris- 
tianity, are overwhelming demonstrations that the 
Bible which reveals Christianity is the Book of God. 

But I am a sceptic ; I am an agnostic ; I demand 
experimental evidence. Has any one ever proved 
the Book true by experience ? If the locomotive 
draws the train, and the steamer actually crosses the 
Atlantic, we have proof of the theory of the 



172 The People s Church Pulpit. 

power of steam. Is the doctrine of the Bible true in 
the experience of good and reliable men ? My father 
comes, and declares that he has tested it for fifty 
years, and that he knows it to be true. He loves me, 
and would not deceive me. Nay, he would defend 
me from deception or delusion. He tells me he 
knows that it is gloriously true. My dear good 
mother, who would give her life for me, assures 
me on her dying bed that she has tested and proven 
the truths of Christianity contained in the Bible for 
many years, and knows them to be true. My sister 
tells me she knows the doctrine to be true. My wife 
tells me that she has tested and proven the doctrine 
to be true. Many of my best friends and neighbors 
testify that they know the truth of the Book. This 
is strong assurance. But it may be a local faith ; and 
so I visit the other great cities of America, and thou- 
sands of the noblest citizens of the United States 
assure me that by their personal knowledge and ex- 
perience they know the doctrine of the Book is 
true. But this may be an American, a provincial 
experience. So I visit England, Ireland, Scotland ; 
I cross the channel to France, Germany, Austria, 
Italy, and the other countries of Europe, and I find 
tens of thousands of godly men and women who 
fill my ears with confirmatory testimony, that they 
know the Book is true. I am not satisfied yet. I 
sail for Australia, and Madagascar, and the Fiji 
Islands, and then I go to Asia and to Africa, and the 
heathen and the cannibal who have tried and proven 
the doctrine of Christianity swell the chorus of testi- 
mony that they know it to be true. I have now 
circumnavigated the globe, and everywhere men and 
women declare that they know by experience that 



Mysteries Solved. 



173 



the doctrine of the Bible is true. I read the volumes 
of history, and the testimony swells into a voice like 
Niagara. Mother, father, kindred, my best friends, 
the purest men and women in all the sections of 
America, the noblest people in Great Britain and 
Europe, the converted cannibals of the islands of the 
sea, the regenerated heathen of Asia and Africa, all 
agree, and the concurrent testimony rolls with the 
majesty of thunder along the firmament of my soul, — 
" All scripture is given by inspiration of God," " The 
word of the Lord endureth forever, and this is the 
word which by the gospel is prepared unto you." 
Now I stand on solid ground, according to the testi- 
mony of man. But from the thrones of heaven, and 
from millions upon millions who have lived in the 
experience, and died in the triumphant demonstra- 
tion, of the truth of the Bible, comes an appealing 
voice to me and to others, " O earth, earth, earth, 
hear the word of the Lord ! " And all these myriads 
of witnesses, on earth and in heaven, are among the 
wisest, noblest, purest men and women that the world 
has ever seen, and their excellence is the result of the 
influence of the truth of the Bible. Their lives and 
characters embody its beneficent effects. They de- 
clare its saving and ennobling power. I see these 
glorious benefits of the teaching and truth and doc- 
trine of the Bible upon my friends and neighbors. I 
can no longer doubt. To question would be to write 
myself down an idiot or a knave. 

But I retreat once more into the last citadel. I 
say : " I don't know for myself that the doctrine of 
the Bible is true ; I believe it on testimony, but can 
I have a personal demonstration of its truth ? " Yes, 
thank God ! Jesus Christ, the Teacher come from 



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God, answers, M If any man will do His will, he shall 
know of the doctrine, whether it be of God." Here, 
then, is the sublime teaching that God will submit the 
truth of Christianity to experiment by me. I am as- 
sured that I may test it, and know whether it be 
from God. He promises to reveal this truth in me, 
and to me. He will give me a personal demonstra- 
tion. It is not to be an inference, a belief, but an 
actual knowledge. This demonstration is to be made 
to my consciousness, the highest source of knowledge 
I can have. By consciousness I know that I e.^ist 
to-night, know my individual identity ; know that I 
think, feel, desire, love, hate, hope, fear ; know when 
I am happy or sorrowful ; know when I am disturbed, 
or at peace ; know when I feel approbation or re- 
morse ; know when guilt pains, and when the pain 
ceases. My senses often deceive me, my judgment 
errs, my memory fails, my reason is fallible, my con- 
science is imperfect ; but my consciousness is positive 
and infallible, in the knowledge of my personal expe- 
rience. To my consciousness, therefore, the only in- 
fallible source of knowledge I have, God offers to 
make this positive demonstration of the divine truth 
of Christianity. I can ask no more. If I am an hon- 
est man, I will now test the truth. If I will not test 
it, I bulletin myself as uncandid, and not desirous of 
knowing the truth. 

But I am honest ; I want to know. The problem 
is simply and plain. 11 If any man will do His will, 
he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God.'' 
I am simply, then, to do as God directs, and I shall 
find the knowledge of the truth of the doctrine of 
salvation ; and what God directs is plainly set forth in 
the Hook. I must repent of and forsake all my sins ; 



Mysteries Solved. 



175 



I must make an unconditional surrender of my will, 
my affections, my soul, my life, to the obedience of the 
teachings of the gospel. I must trust with implicit 
faith in the atonement and sacrifice of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, who has become the satisfaction for my sins 
and for the sins of the whole world. " Believe on the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." That 
is the word. In prayer I come to God, as directed in 
the Book, and forsaking all sin, resolve determinedly 
to obey God's commandments so long as I live. In 
the promised help of God I do surrender myself whol- 
ly into His hands, and trust the Lord Jesus Christ 
as my Saviour. Just as well as I know how, I do ex- 
actly what God bids me do with all my heart ; and no 
sooner done, than what is this ? There comes to my 
heart a strange and unknown experience. There 
comes to my being a demonstration that fills me with 
satisfaction and assurance, and peace and blessing. 
''Being justified by faith, I have peace with God 
through our Lord Jesus Christ." I am conscious of 
forgiveness of my sins. The peace of God fills my 
soul, and sinks fathoms down into my being ; I have 
a sense of the divine love shed abroad in my heart. 
I am saved, and what is more, I know it. It thrills 
me, and I am lifted out of my former life ; I am lifted 
into a new life, and I feel new pulses beating through 
my being In my consciousness there is the evi- 
dence borne in upon me that I am a child of God. I 
know a change has taken place in my relations and 
my feelings, and in my essential character. The 
feeling of guilt is gone. "There is therefore now no 
condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who 
walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit." I came 
to God a guilty sinner, praying for help and mercy — 



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" Sinking and panting as for breath, 
I knew not help was near me ; 
I cried, ' save me, Lord, from death ! 
Immortal Jesus, hear me ! ' 

" Then quick as thought I felt Him mine, 
My Saviour stood before me ; 
I saw His brightness round me shine, 
And shouted, 1 Glory ! glory ! ' 

" Oh, sacred hour ! Oh, hallowed spot ! 
Where love divine first found me, 
Wherever falls my distant lot, 
My heart still lingers round thee. 

"And when from earth I rise to soar 
Up to my home in heaven, 
Down will I cast my eyes once more 
Where I was first forgiven." 

This is a glorious reality, a conscious certainty. 
To many, the hour and the place of God's demonstra- 
tion of Christianity to them can never be forgotten. 
To some the precise moment is not defined, but the 
fact that religion is true is equally clear to them. 
Now, as I go on doing the will of God, my knowledge 
of the doctrine increases. I see I am a new man. 
Old things are passed away. Whatsoever of evil I 
once loved, I now hate, and whatsoever of good I 
once hated, I now love. Bad habits drop away from 
me like leaves in autumn ; good desires, good habits, 
shoot forth like leaves in springtime, and cover my 
life with new activities. The Bible becomes a new 
book, prayer a delight, and the whole service of God 
a blessed joy. I am a changed man. The doctrine 
is of God, and I know it. And this demonstration is 
made to my consciousness, so that I may be positively 
ertain of it. 1 know this doctrine is true, as I know 



Mysteries Solved. 



177 



pain and pleasure. No man can dispute it, nor nega- 
tive it ; for no man can stand inside my conscious- 
ness, and feel what I feel, and know what I know 
within my soul. So certain and priceless is this 
knowledge of the truth, that I would not part with it 
for anything which the world holds for me. Evil men 
persecute me, but I suffer the loss of all things rather 
than surrender the glorious knowledge. I go to pris- 
on with John Bunyan, rather than stop preaching it. 
I stand with John Huss at the burning stake, crying, 
" What I have preached with my lips, I now seal with 
my blood." I ascend the scaffold with Hugh McKail, 
and cry, " Farewell, friends ; welcome death, welcome 
eternal life." I lay my head on the block with Lady 
Jane Grey, rather than lose the comfort and the 
peace of this holy religion, which I know to be the 
power of God unto salvation. 

Millions of men have been through the fires of per- 
secution, thousands upon tens of thousands have suf- 
fered martyrdom, rather than deny the knowledge of 
the truth of Christianity. It is something deeper 
and richer and more precious than life itself. Glori- 
ous certainty ! Blessed knowledge ! I have the evi- 
dence of it in my inmost soul. Sorrows cannot 
drown it, losses cannot rob me of it, death cannot 
eclipse it. It grows surer and sweeter every day. In 
this triumphant certainty, I '11 live and die. I won- 
der not that a presiding elder, not long since, of the 
Newark Conference, a grand, holy man, as he was 
dying, said to a brother standing by his side, "Tell 
my brethren that I have experienced and tested the 
truth of every doctrine preached by the Methodist 
Episcopal Church but one, and I know them all to be 
true up to this hour. I have not yet tested the truth 



178 The Peoples Church Pulpit. 

of the doctrine of the resurrection, but I am sure, as 
all the rest are true, that * my Redeemer liveth, and 
that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth, 
and though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh 
shall I see God, whom I shall see for myself, and 
mine eyes shall behold and not another.' " There is 
no other system of truth but evangelical Christianity 
that every man may test, and experience, and know 
for a certainty before he crosses the river. No man 
can know that universal salvation is true till he gets 
the other side of the river; and then, if he has made 
a mistake, it is too late to mend it. But every man 
may know that he is saved now through the Lord 
Jesus Christ, and he will then have no mistakes 
beyond the river to correct. It is this evangelical, 
experimental Christianity which Christ says we may 
test and know, if we will do the will of God. What 
avail, then, the flippant objections of sceptics, the 
ribald blasphemies of the peripatetic infidel lecturers 
up and down our land, who confessedly know nothing 
of Christianity, who never have proven it, while the 
Christian feels its life-giving power in his own soul ? 

11 What we have felt and seen, 
With confidence we tell. 
And publish to the sons of men 
The signs infallible. 

" Exults our rising soul, 

Disburdened of her load, 
And swells unutterably full 
Of glory and of God." 

Permit two or three concluding remarks : — 
(1.) The first is, the grand impartiality of this 
truth. "If any man will do His will, he shall know 
of the doctrine." Every soul has fair play; no favor- 



Mysteries Solved. 



179 



itism obtains. God is no respecter of persons. If 
man will do, he shall know. 

(2.) Another remark in this same line of thought 
Any man who is befogged with doubt, any man who 
is overshadowed by scepticism, any man who is 
blinded, even, by the arguments of infidelity, may 
have the knowledge of this truth, if he is honest 
enough to simply test it, as he would test any 
mechanical appliance or instrument which he wished 
to know the value of. One fact will illustrate this 
thought. It occurred during my ministry in Chicago. 
There was a gentleman in the city whose wife 
was a member of our church. He was a follower 
of Colonel Ingersoll, a devout believer, as he pro- 
fessed, in Thomas Paine ; he was also a notorious 
gambler. This man laughed at religion, scoffed at 
the piety of his wife, mocked at the services of the 
church. After a conversation with him once at his 
home, during a great revival that was prevailing, I 
suggested to him to come up to meeting some night. 
One evening, as I arose to close the meeting, I saw 
him in the rear and central part of the house. I had 
no premeditation of what I proposed, for it was an 
inspiration from God. I said : " There are two 
classes of infidels, an honest class and a dishonest 
class. The dishonest sceptic or infidel would not 
allow you to help him to a knowledge of the truth if 
you could ; he does not want to know it. The hon- 
est sceptic or infidel is a man who has become be- 
wildered and befogged, and if you could show him 
the light, he would be glad to follow it. If there is 
an honest infidel in this house to-night, if he will 
come forward and kneel in front of the altar, I will 
kneel 011 the back side of it, and if he will stay there in 



I So The Peoples Church Pulpit. 

an honest attitude of mind, I will stay here till the 
certainty of the Christian religion is demonstrated to 
his consciousncsSy and he knows it as truly as I know 
it." As quick as I had spoken, the infidel rose, 
walked down the aisle, and knelt in front of me. I 
bowed, and asked him, "Are you sincere in desiring 
to know the truth ? " 11 1 am, sir, but I don't believe 
a word of it." " All right," replied I, " I do, and the 
Lord does ; no matter about you now." We went 
on singing, and perhaps thirty or forty others came to 
the altar. We had ten or fifteen minutes of prayer, 
and I prayed for him and beside him, and then we 
arose and sang a hymn. I thought his face looked 
changed, and I whispered to him, " Sir, have you ex- 
perienced any change as to your belief or convic- 
tions while we have been praying ? " " I have, sir." 
" Would you be willing to state what change has 
come to you to the audience ? " " I have no objec- 
tions, sir." I hushed the singing, and said, "This 
gentleman wishes to say a word." He turned around 
as coolly and calmly as I am speaking now, and said : 
" Ladies and gentlemen, when I came to this altar 
to-night I had doubts of the existence of God; I ut- 
terly disbelieved in the Bible, and in Jesus Christ as 
the Saviour of men. I cannot explain to you what 
has transpired, or how the change has come, but every 
vestige of my unbelief has vanished, and I feel a con- 
sciousness of the certainty of the truth of religion 
borne in upon me that is as strong as my life ; and I 
further feel that my sins, which many of you know 
have been black and heinous, have all been forgiven, 
and I do consciously believe that the Lord Jesus 
Christ is now my Saviour." I have always felt that 
God, in His mercy, wrought that demonstration of 



Mysteries Solved. 



the sudden, illuminating, and transforming power of 
divine grace, to convert, change, and save an infidel, 
that I might never doubt, as I spoke to the hardest 
sinner on earth, that he could be saved from his sins. 
God, in His power, is able to save to the uttermost ; 
to save every man and woman in Boston, however 
dark may be their sins, however deep may be their 
doubts. If they will do his will, they shall know 
the doctrine. God grant that this beautiful church, 
which has been brought to its consummation through 
labor and toil, through heroism and sublime faith, 
may be filled Sabbath after Sabbath, year after year, 
with thronging congregations, to hear from this pul- 
pit the glorious truth that Jesus Christ is able to 
save unto the uttermost. And may hundreds and 
thousands and tens of thousands, ere these walls 
shall crumble, be converted to God, and here con- 
fess their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as a con- 
scious experience ! Then shall the house be not 
only dedicated to God, but filled with the glory of 
God. Amen 



SUNDAY MORNING. 



MAN A SPIRIT. 



The Rev. BISHOP RANDOLPH S. FOSTER, D.D., LL.D, 



MAN A SPIRIT. 



" What is man that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man 
that Thou visitest him ? " — Psalms viii : 4. 

You have heard the statement of your pastor that 
for the last three months I have been restrained from 
attending any service of any kind, except last Sab- 
bath, when I came to hear my colleague preach. I 
have had great fear that I should not have strength 
for this service, for the form of my illness has espe- 
cially impaired my strength of voice and my strength 
of brain action. If God needs my service, and it has 
seemed to be called for, He can give me strength. 
I desire your prayers that I may be able to go through 
the service without inconvenience or harm to myself 
or distress to you. 

thou Great and Holy Father, whose we are 
and whom we serve, this cause is Thy cause. If 
Thou needest us, thou canst give us strength. We 
look to Thee for Thy help and for Thy blessing. 
Amen. 

1 will ask your attention to some thoughts sug- 
gested by the fourth verse of the eighth Psalm, 
" What is man that Thou art mindful of him, and the 
son of man that Thou visitest him ? " I will read the 
third verse in connection with the text, " When I 
consider the heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the 

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The Peoples Church Pulpit. 



moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what 
is man that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of 
man that Thou visitest him ? " 

Christianity is a religion of ideas. Out of ideas it 
proposes to develop character. It is the only relig- 
ion in the world that rests upon this great and fun- 
damental idea of character, built out of and upon 
truth. This principle it is that makes Christianity 
an aggressive system, a combative system, a de- 
structive system It makes war upon every sys- 
tem of error and falsehood that exists in the world. 
It rests its claim exclusively upon the ground that it 
is the truth, or a body of truth, and as such appeals 
for its preeminence and sovereignty over the human 
mind. 

Christianity is responsible, more than any other 
agency, for the great and distinguishing mark of our 
time, the scepticism which is abroad in the world. It 
has enthroned this age of doubt. It has indicted every 
other system ; it has required every other system to 
give answer. It has established in the mind of 
men the idea that no system has a right to live that 
cannot defend itself ; and, thus, it has produced, the 
world over, the idea that any doctrine or system of 
doctrine, to have the confidence of men, must be 
able to vindicate itself to human reason. And the 
world, accepting that position, has now arraigned 
Christianity to answer at the same bar. The age has 
raised the question whether this religion, making these 
great pretensions, is able to answer the standard 
which it has erected; and it, in turn with every other 
system, is now challenged. And we are glad that it 
is so. Let it take its place ; let it stand upon its 
chosen ground ; let it vindicate itself; let it establish 



Man a Spirit. 



187 



its doctrine, and then let the world bow to its Lord 
and Redeemer. 

The three great questions which are before the 
world to-day have grown on this root of doubt and 
challenge of the Christian religion. There are but 
three questions which are common over all the world ; 
they exist wherever men have come to think, in all 
lands, Christian and unchristian. They are : Is there 
a personal God ? Is man a responsible spirit, and is 
he immortal ? Has God made known His will and 
thought to His human children ? These questions, I 
say, are to-day agitating the world with a spell of 
strange power, — the entire educated mind of the 
race. They are the questions in the laboratory, in 
the study of the philosopher as well as in the closet 
and library of the theologian and Christian. All men, 
great and small, are interested in them. 

These three questions are brought to view in the text 
which I have read. I do not propose to discuss them. 
Still, they stand here, and they stand as the Trinity 
pervasive of the entire Christian Scriptures, — God, 
an Eternal Person ; man, a responsible and immor- 
tal spirit ; the Bible, God's revelation to His children. 

" When I consider the heavens, the work of Thy 
fingers." Here God is presented to us, not as some 
great abstract thought or impersonal power, but as a 
supreme person, " The work of Thy fingers, the 
moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained, what 
is man that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of 
man that Thou visitest him ? " I cannot, of course, 
discuss at this time the great question of the person- 
ality of God. It is, however, one of the most living 
questions of these times ; it is one of the most fun- 
damental questions ; it is one that needs to be 



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brought more to the consideration of Christians ; it 
deserves some great hour on this platform, when this 
house is crowded, for its full discussion. I am to con- 
sider, rather, that other question, " What is man that 
Thou art mindful of him ? 

But, first, before I approach the discussion of that 
question, it is proper that I should ask you to dwell 
for a moment, this morning, upon this other ques- 
tion, — Is there any evidence whatever that this great, 
supreme, and infinite Spirit is mindful of man, or is it 
a bald assumption of Christianity ? 

It has been stated, and it is held by many as 
a certain truth, that one of the great exaggera- 
tions of Christianity is the importance which it 
gives to man ; that one of its great mistakes is 
the assumption that man is a special, object of the 
divine thought, that he has any other place in 
creation than that which belongs to the common 
things of life, to the common things of existence ; 
that this is a kind of egotism which belongs to the 
Christian system. I pause, therefore, for a moment 
to call your attention to this assumption of the text, 
— that man, somehow, is an object of the special 
thought of God ; that, more than any other creature, 
man is in the heart of God ; that what Christianity 
assumes is truth ; that the universe is for man, that 
man is the microcosm, the universe in its significance 
and meaning ; that, as such, man is always preemi- 
nent and supreme, and that all God's ordering, in 
providence antl in creation, is in the interest of man. 

It is not to be wondered at that this assumption of 
Christianity should excite our surprise. When we 
look at man, when we see his apparent insignificance, 
how he dwindles into absolute nothingness when we 



Man a Spirit, 



contemplate him as an individual in comparison with 
the other great existences, we can but wonder that 
He who has lived from eternity, He by whose power 
the heavens are spread out, He who is the Father 
of all, He whose immensity of life and power and 
activity transcends all imagination, He who lives in 
these great depths of time and space, holding all 
worlds in the grasp of His hand, that He should ever 
have thought of this insignificant child of the earth, 
much more that He should have made him to be 
supreme in his position. The words of David have 
been the words of many thoughtful minds: "When 
I consider the heavens, those vast, resplendent 
realms above us, the moon and the stars, those lumi- 
naries of the night, and the sun, that great luminary 
of the day, when I think of this vast system, What 
is man that Thou art mindful of him ? " 

Had David lived in our day, there would have been 
much more emphasis in his question. The universe 
upon which he gazed was but an atom, a span. The 
stars meant nothing to David, except that they 
were luminaries of the night, flickering specks of 
light upon the sky. We have come to know that 
each one of those stars is a mighty orb ; we have 
come to know that the luminaries upon which we 
gaze are all of them vastly larger than the world 
upon which we live. David's eye gazed upon two or 
three thousand of these luminaries, and no more. 
We have an eye that sweeps two thousand times 
deeper into the abysses of space, and gathers within 
its embrace five thousand million such bodies. Our 
universe spreads out, in magnitude and extent, infi- 
nitely beyond anything David ever saw or ever 
dreamed ; and we have hints of realms of sidereal 



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heavens and objects of life vaster than that yet 
brought within our reach. Still, with all this vast 
sweep, we stand before the universe, and proclaim 
that more than of all this, God thinks of His human 
children upon the face of the earth. 

And, now, to show that this is so, I ask your 
thought just for one moment, that it may not rest in 
mere assumption, but on the grounds of reason under 
which we all have a right to believe. 

How do we find out what is supreme in the 
thought of any thinking being? So far as we 
know, thought is confined to beings like ourselves, 
to the great presiding personal God who made the 
universe, and, by revelation, we have the persua- 
sion and belief that it extends to similar beings 
in another world. How do we find out what is the 
thought of a man, what is supreme and uppermost 
in his mind, except by observing what he does? It 
is the act that tells the thought. We have no eye 
by which to discern personality at all. We have 
no power by which to penetrate the arcana of mind, 
and see what is going on there. We look at the 
movements of men, and judge, by what we see 
them do, what they think. We are able to translate 
from the outer expression to the inward feeling and 
the inward thought. And it is so when we come to 
meditate on God. 

No eye hath ever seen God. He is invisible ; 
He hides Himself in the depths of obscurity. We 
go forward, and we cannot find Him. We go back- 
ward, and we cannot find Him. But we find the to- 
kens of His presence everywhere. 1 leaven and earth 
are full of His glory. He hath written His name 
upon everything, but hath He done no more than in- 



Man a Spirit. 



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scribe His name ? Hath He given no intimation 
whatever concerning what is the deep thought of His 
heart or of His mind ? Is it impossible for us, by 
observation and study, to get hold of the trend of 
His mind, to see what He means in laying the foun- 
dations of the universe and in building it along the 
ages and administrating over it ? Is it impossible 
for us to come to any understanding or reason as to 
what He means by all this great movement ? I think 
not. I think we are not to be shut up simply to the 
spoken revelation. He hath so revealed Himself that 
we may understand something of His mind. 

Science declares the great fact that originally, at 
the beginning, God's first out-go, His first movement, 
was to create the atomic substance of which worlds 
are made. It is pretty clear, and we have satisfac- 
tory evidence of reason, that the first great fiat spread 
the abysses of space with mist of things, — mere ele- 
ments. If we ask why this creative fiat, for there 
must have been a reason, if we linger long enough, 
we shall find the answer; we shall find these infinites- 
simal atoms rolling themselves up into great orbs, and 
taking their stations at relative distances from each 
other and performing certain motions. If we still ask, 
Why this spectacular display, glorious, magnificent, 
wonderful ? we are not able to answer at once. But, 
if we linger awhile, we see what was the object. The 
earth on which we live modifies its temperature, it 
clarifies its atmosphere, it revolves around its solar 
centre, its hills are piled up, its valleys are spread 
out, and its seas; there comes a day in its history, 
perhaps millions of years after that fire-mist was first 
created, — for God is in no hurry, He builds for eter- 
nity and not for time, and takes ages for a single 



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movement, — -there comes a day when we stand and 
look out over the surfaces of our world, and it becomes 
carpeted with beautiful green ; vegetation springs 
from its hills and valleys, trees lift themselves up 
and wave in its atmosphere, and the earth is covered 
with beautiful verdure and flora. Now, we say, we 
understand what all this movement meant. We see 
the trend of this mighty Worker: He made the world 
for beautiful trees and plants. So much appears. 

We wait a million years, it may be, and a change 
has come again. There are new atmospheric and 
thermal conditions, and some beautiful morning we 
awake, and find the air about us thrilling with notes 
of music, and the earth about us alive with the mo- 
tion of animal life ; birds and beasts have come to live 
upon this flora and this vegetable fibre. And now, 
we say, we see what the great Mover means, what 
was in His thought when he laid these foundations. 
We have the evident trend of the movement. 

But we wait a million years more. It is a great 
and beautiful day, the heavens are full of bright- 
ness, the earth thrills with the ecstasy of life, it is 
a supreme moment in its history; and, as we gaze, 
we see the result when the fiat of God kisses the 
earth again, and man stands forth upon its surface, 
and all things bow down and do him reverence. 
The beasts of the field, the gorgeously plumed 
birds of the air, the finny tribes of the sea, all ele- 
ments of nature, congregate about him, and call 
him lord and master of this beautiful world. And 
now, we say, we see what the Great Father meant 
when He laid these foundations, when He piled these 
mountains, when He called forth this vegetable mag- 
nificence, when He created animal life: He meant it 



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for His child, He was building a home for man ; and 
all things in it, the mines in the mountains, the min- 
eral wealth of the world, everything which will be for 
the service and comfort of man, shows what God was 
thinking about these millions of years. Like as a 
father gathers fortune and builds a home for his be- 
loved child, and spends his wealth and spends his 
energy for her and for her bridal day, so our Great 
Father spends the energies of His almightiness, of His 
infinite love, to prepare a home for man, that he 
might dwell in comfort and might come to a glorious 
estate. 

But I cannot dwell longer on this. I pass, now, 
since we see that this was God's ultimate thought, 
to consider what there is in man that justifies this 
great outlay of thought and love. Why should He 
have thought of us ? Why should we have been in 
His heart ? Why we, more than other things about 
us ? What is there in us that He should have set His 
love upon us, that He should have taken us to His 
bosom, and kissed us, and said, "Thou art my child "? 
What is it ? This is the greatest question before this 
age. It is the supremest question that can ever come 
to man. 

If we take the vulgar view of mere sense, it is im- 
possible to explain it. There are those who see in man 
simply what they see with the eve ; and I undertake 
to say that he who cannot, see anything else in man 
than what he sees with his eyes can find no explana- 
tion of the mystery of God's dealings. There is 
nothing in man, tha' comes to the observation of 
sense, that is of special dignity or worth. It were a 
vain egotism for us to set up any pretence of pre-em- 
inence of any kind upon the ground of what appears 



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to the senses. In our vanity, we are prone to con- 
ceive ourselves as the last and most exalted of organ- 
isms. It is not all vanity ; we are, doubtless, the 
topmost rank ; scientific evolution, which mostly 
means scientific inconsequence and nonsense, places 
us at the top of this great rank of successive crea- 
tions. But, if we stop with what is seen of man, 
there is no possible vindication or ground for the 
assumption or explanation of the fact that God 
places special value upon man. There is not a 
beast on the earth that is baser or more de- 
graded in its physical condition than man is as 
a physical being ; not one has more ignoble lusts, 
more degrading passions ; not one that is not his 
equal in everything that pertains to this external 
nature of man. There is nothing in it but shame and 
degradation, if it be left to itself. 

The answer, therefore, must be that it is not man as 
we see him, not the thing that we see, that God gives 
such preeminence. If He has arranged the world 
as He has, all its elements and all its conditions for 
the comfort, for the support, for the healthy develop- 
ment of that which is seen, it is not because He cares 
anything about it, not because there is anything in it, 
merely in itself considered, of special importance ; but 
it is because it is but the servant of man. It was 
made for man and is not man. It belongs to the 
great realm of things that were made for God's 
child; it is a thing that helps him, through which 
he goes out into consciousness and life and power ; 
it is a part of that great material organism in which 
God boms His children, in which they take their life, 
that through it they may grow to be like Him. 

Man is like his Mn« 'T. God has never revealed o 



Man a Spirit. 



195 



greater truth, one more supremely indicative of the 
fundamental fact of a revelation, than when He said, 
"•Let us make man in our likeness, after our image." 
Man is God's prototype, made in His likeness, made in 
His image ; man is God's child. All other things are 
God's things, God's creations ; man is God's outbirth, 
His child. He can come into his life, tie can think 
his thoughts, He can feel his feelings. Man is in- 
visible, like his Maker. No man ever saw man, or 
ever can. Like his Maker, he hides behind things. 
We see him when he comes out into action, when he 
comes out into thought, in the words he speaks, in 
the movements he makes. In these we see the evi- 
dences of an invisible spirit that man is. 

May I dwell for a moment on this great theme ? 
O thou eternal Father, speak this day thy great 
truth ! Man, I said, is an invisible potency. He is 
that being unknown to himself, alas ! alas ! so often 
unknown to himself. In his blindness he confounds 
himself with externalities, with things. But he is the 
imperial being who, dwelling in a body, commands a 
body, uses a body, takes a body to do his will and his 
service. He is that strange being who sits there 
somewhere, he cannot tell where or hovv, and thinks, 
rises by sheer personal energy into the great realm of 
truth, and sees — sees things, sees God. He is that 
mysterious being, that, sitting there in the invisible 
chamber of his home, he knows not how or where, 
does things ; that puts forth power, that wills and 
creates ; that takes the body, and bids it go and do 
his bidding like a slave ; that looks out, and feels the 
wonder and ecstacy of the inexplicable mystery of 
life, and tells the body to create and construct for 
him. He is the master who sits enthroned over his 



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body and over the world, and through them rises up, 
and looks into the face of God, and says, " My Father, 
my Father ! " and falls down and worships Him. Th£t 
is man, and that is what God meant when he created 
man. 

He begins^at nothing ; born of a woman, born in 
weakness ; born without a thought, born without a 
feeling, born without a will ; born in human flesh, 
cradled upon a woman's breast in unconsciousness ; 
lying there, slumbering in the integuments of flesh 
and blood, till some day, shortly after his birth, he 
begins to feel his way outward and upward, begins to 
unfold what is in him. A smile comes over the baby's 
face : it was like a face of wax before, there was 
nothing in it. Every mother knows, loving her child 
as she does, that there comes a day when, through 
that vacant eye, there streams a light of recognition, 
a look, an expression, and a soul is seen standing at 
the window, — a soul with a question, a soul with an 
inspiration. And then that little soul, when it has 
rolled its eyes with wonder and astonishment for a 
day or two, begins to move the trembling and uncer- 
tain hand of infancy, and lifts it up and grasps at 
something, and lays a velvet touch upon a mother's 
face, and smiles back and laughs. It is a soul just 
born, a soul coming into life, a man rising up. And 
for what ? Where shall he go ? What shall become 
of him? What is it that God has made and put in 
his little breast ? An immortal inhabitant of Eter- 
nity, whose birthright is eternal growth, the very idea 
of whose existence is extension and unfolding forever 
and ever, growing into the likeness and image of God, 
gazing upon ihe face of the Great Eternal, as it is 
mirrored in stars and suns and earthly existences, anr 



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changing from glory to glory as it sees the Divine 
Image. That is man as God made him, and as God 
intended him to be. 

Now, I have only strength for a thought or two 
more that I would leave in your hearts. Oh ! that 
this truth that I seek to develop may go into your 
souls, and make you understand what God meant — 
what it is to be men and women, what privileges and 
birthright we possess, and why it is that God made 
heaven and earth for man ! I have said that his pecu- 
liar quality is that he abides. 

Nothing else abides. God abides, man abides : 
things sweep by and sweep away. In the march of 
time every sun will dim its splendor and every star 
will flicker out. God and man alone abide for eter- 
nity, they have qualities of permanence ; and herein 
is one of the proofs of the study I have put before 
you — that man is not this visible form, but that he 
is the invisible inhabitant of the form. This form 
passes away, passes away day by day. It is not in 
death alone, but every day of life it is dissolving. 
We wear a different coat of flesh than that we did 
six or seven years ago, every atom of our old body 
has gone out into the great world of inorganic 
nature ; all its elements perish and pass away. The 
body is taken down and destroyed, but we stay. We 
are not taken down, we abide through the years, and, 
standing on the needle-point of this hour, we look 
back over the fifty years that are passed, and gather 
all its life, all its experience, all its thought, into a sin- 
gle glance. We who are here to-day are the same as 
we were then ; we trod these hills and valleys fifty 
years ago ; we looked on other forms, that have gone 
by and disappeared ; and we, though all these years, 



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have steadily gone on, losing nothing, keeping all, 

gathering more, growing as we advanced. Thus we 
are to march through the eternities, through the eter- 
nities, through those far-off years of immeasurable 
time ; and some day, a thousand million years from 
now, we are to stand, as on some mighty mountain, 
and look down over all the wasting years, and gather 
up all our experiences, all our great thoughts, into a 
single glance ; and, standing there before the face of 
God, almost gods ourselves, throwing the crown of our 
glory at His feet, we will ascribe majesty and might 
and dominion to Him. 

O brothers, that is what man is. Not the drudge 
of to-day ; not the form that goes with weary feet to 
the busy market ; not the form that bends behind the 
counter ; not the toiler, with hard hand and bronzed 
face. Man is the angel in the human breast, born of 
God, born in the image of God, born to live with God 
forever. We adore and worship the great God who 
had it in His heart to build us out of nothing, and 
to touch our souls with the breath of His own life, 
that we might be lifted out of time into the glory of 
His fellowship forever. Brothers, may God pour His 
spirit upon you, and to-day and henceforth make you 
to know the greatness of your privilege ! 



SUNDAY AFTERNOON. 



THE GLORY OF THE LATTER HOUSE. 



The Rev. Bishop JABEZ P. CAMPBELL. D.D., LL.D. 



THE GLORY OF THE LATTER HOUSE. 



" The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, 
saith the Lord of hosts : and in this place will I give peace, saith the 
Lord of hosts." — Haggai ii : 9. 

The prophet Haggai, it is probable, was born in 
Babylon in the time of the captivity. He appears to 
have been the first prophet sent of God with a mes- 
sage to the Jewish people after their return from 
Babylon to their own land. The message sent by him 
was to encourage the Jews, who had returned, to go 
forward in the work of rebuilding the temple of God 
at Jerusalem, the foundation of which was laid aftel 
the issuing of the decree for that purpose by Cyrus, 
King of Persia, in the first year of his reign, 536 years 
before the coming of Christ. 

At that time the seventy years of captivity, foretold 
by the prophet Jeremiah, had ended. When their en- 
emies who dwelt in the land had knowledge of the de- 
cree of the king for the rebuilding of the temple at 
Jerusalem, and that he had ordered material to be 
given for that purpose, also had given them the ves- 
sels of the house of the Lord with everything else 
necessary for the rebuilding and furnishing of the 
temple, they raised objections, withstood them, and 
brought an influence to bear upon the king himself, 
sufficient to cause another decree to be issued which 
compelled the people to cease from building, even 

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after the foundation of the second house of the Lord 
was laid. So great was the influence brought to bear 
against them, upon the kings, that Zerubbabel, the 
son of Shealtiel, the governor, and his brethren, and 
Joshua, the son of Josedech, the high priest, and his 
brethren, were so disheartened, that, after abandoning 
the work, they made no further attempt to continue 
the building until the second year of Darius, King of 
Persia, 520 years before Christ. 

In the sixth month of that year, we are told that 
the word of the Lord came to Haggai, the prophet, 
unto Zerubbabel, the governor, and to Joshua, the 
high priest. 

By this word of the Lord, Haggai reproved the 
people for neglecting the building of the house, and 
urged them to build. He promised assistance from 
God to help them in going forward with the work. 

When they had received the message of the Lord, 
through this prophet, then Zerubbabel, the governor, 
with Joshua, the high priest, together with all the 
people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God and 
the words of Haggai, and they came and did the work 
in the house of the Lord. When they had begun the 
work again, the prophet encouraged the people with 
the promise that a greater glory should come to the 
second house than had been in the former. 

The house which was built by Solomon, the king, 
had been the earthly residence of Jehovah for a 
period of four hundred years. Here dwelt the Holy 
One of Israel, in a sense in which He did not dwell in 
any other place upon the earth. 

It was in the heart of David to build a house for 
the Lord, and he resolved to do so. This he did when 



The Glory of the Latter House. 203 

he found himself dwelling in a beautiful palace, built 
of the cedars of Lebanon, and surrounded by a royal 
court, with every other dignity and comfort becoming 
his kingly estate. As he looked from his palace on 
the old and dilapidated tabernacle which was built in 
the days of Moses ; which was with the children of 
Israel during the forty years' sojourn in the wilder- 
ness ; with them when they conquered and took pos- 
session of the land of Canaan, the promised land ; with 
them in all of the wars for that conquest ; with them 
during the reign of all the judges down to Samuel ; 
with Samuel forty years ; with Saul, the first king, 
forty years ; and with David himself forty years, — in 
all, from the time of its building, a period of more than 
four hundred years, — he said, " I will not give sleep 
to mine eyes, nor slumber to mine eyelids, until I 
build God a house." So said David to Nathan, the 
prophet. Nathan was pleased, and approved of the 
good resolution of the king, and departed from his 
presence until the next morning. 

In the morning Nathan returned, and again told 
the king that his purpose to build a house for the 
Lord was good, but that nevertheless he was author- 
ized by the Lord to say unto him that he should not 
build the house, for the reason that he had been a 
man of war, and had shed much blood. But the Lord 
had promised that he would give to him a son, a man 
of peace, filled with wisdom and understanding for the 
work, and that he should build that house. However, 
he informed David that he had permission to gather 
materials for the building of the house, all that was 
necessary, or the means to purchase the materials. 
And the Lord also promised David that He would 



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give to him the pattern, and that He would give to 
his son Solomon the wisdom to build the house after 
the pattern given to him. 

All this was fulfilled to the letter ; the house was 
built, finished, and dedicated to the service of 
Almighty God. 

At the dedication, the house was filled with the 
glory of God when the divine presence took posses- 
sion of it, just as it did when the tabernacle was fin- 
ished in the wilderness, and dedicated to the service 
of Jehovah. 

Solomon's temple was a building of wonderful 
magnificence. It was an object of taste, beauty, and 
sublimity ; and thus it is said, " Beautiful for situation, 
the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion, on the side 
of the north, the city of the great king." " God is 
known in her palaces for a refuge. Walk about Zion, 
and go round about her ; tell the towers thereof ; mark 
ye well her bulwarks ; consider her palaces, that ye 
may tell it to the generations following. For this 
God is our God forever and ever. He will be our 
Guide even unto death." 

All this has been said, and very much more might 
be said, concerning the glory of the former house. 

In the first temple or house of the Lord, there were 
to be seen several things which were never seen in the 
second temple. Among these we may name the ark 
of the covenant, which contained the two tables of the 
law written with the finger of God; there was Aaron's 
rod that budded ; the Urim and Thummim ; the pot of 
manna ; the sacred fire which fell from heaven ; and the 
mercy seat ; above it stood the cherubim, over which 
appeared the heavenly shekinah, or manifestation of 
the divine presence, in the most holy place, — all of 



The Glory of the Latter House. 205 

which were types and shadows of good things to 
come. 

But, alas ! alas ! for the sins of the people, for 
their iniquities, and often-repeated violations of the 
laws of God ; their wonderful proneness to idolatry ; 
the serving of the gods of the nations round about 
them, against which the judgments of the Almighty 
for many generations had been threatened. 

Their beautiful house was destroyed and razed to 
the foundations of it ; their magnificent temple burned 
with fire ; the walls of the city were thrown down ; 
their houses burned ; their kings, their princes, and 
their nobles were made captive, and carried to Baby- 
lon in chains. By the rivers of Babylon they sat 
down in sadness and silence. Their enemies taunt- 
ingly said unto them, " Come, Jew, sing us one of the 
songs of Zion ! " I hear the pious Jew saying, while 
his eyes were turned toward the Holy Place of Jeru- 
salem, toward the mount on which the house of the 
Lord had stood, " How can I sing the Lord's song in 
a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let 
my right hand forget her cunning ; let my tongue 
cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I prefer not 
Jerusalem above my chief joy." 

As we have said, the time prophesied by Jeremiah 
had now expired ; the seventy years were accom- 
plished, and the Lord had " turned again the cap- 
tivity of Zion." The writer of the one hundred and 
twenty-sixth Psalm refers to the event of their return 
in this beautiful language : " When the Lord turned 
again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that 
dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and 
our tongue with singing ; then said they among the 
heathen, the Lord hath done great things for them. 



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The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we 
are glad." 

Josephus, speaking of the second house, says: "It 
is a work the most admirable of any that had ever 
been seen or heard of, both for its curious structure 
and its magnitude ; and also for the vast wealth ex- 
pended upon it, as well as for the universal reputation 
of its sanctity." 

All this, and very much more, has been said con- 
cerning the temple which was built by Herod the 
Great, — that temple concerning which the Jews 
had said to the Saviour it had been forty and six 
years in building. It indeed was large, strong, and 
in its arrangements and furnishings magnificent ; 
But that was not the glory to which the prophet 
referred when he said that "the glory of this latter 
house shall be greater than of the former." A shadow 
is never equal to that of which it is a shadow ; a 
type never is, nor can be, equal to the antitype. The 
law given by Moses was a type, and only a shadow, 
of good things to come by and through the Gospel of 
Christ. Christ is the ark of safety to all of His fol- 
lowers, and for all who will follow Him. As the 
people were led through the wilderness, guided by 
the presence of the angel Jehovah, with a pillar of 
cloud by day and of fire by night, for forty years, so 
Christ leads His people through the wilderness of 
this world, by a pillar of cloud by day, and of fire by 
night. His word is a lamp unto our feet, and a light 
unto our pathway. Christ appeared in the latter 
house as the way, the truth, and the life, — the light 
which lightcth every man that cometh into the world. 

In this latter house there appears, instead of 
Aaron's rod that budded, the rod and staff of Him 



The Glory of the Latter House, 207 

who has promised that He shall comfort the believer 
in the valley of the shadow of death ; instead of the 
pot of manna, in the second temple there appears 
One who says, " 1 am the bread of life " ; and as an 
antitype of God's provision for His famishing people 
before even the building of the former house, in- 
stead of the smitten rock in the wilderness, of which 
the people who drank afterward died, we have in the 
latter house One who said to the woman at Jacob's 
well in Samaria, " If thou knewest the gift of God, 
and Who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, 
thou wouldst have asked of Him, and He would have 
given thee living water." And upon another occa- 
sion, it is said of Him : " On the last day, that great 
day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any 
man thirst, let him come unto me and drink ; he 
that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out 
of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. This 
spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on 
Him should receive." 

In this latter house we have that which excels in 
glory the Urim and Thummim, or the symbol of light 
and perfection. We have Christ revealing Himself as 
the light of the world, the desire of all nations, in the 
Holy Spirit who cleanses, purifies, and makes perfect 
all who will receive Him, the Spirit of truth which 
guides into all truth. In the latter house, instead of 
a cloud of glory above the mercy seat which repre- 
sented the divine presence, we have God manifest 
in the flesh, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, 
believed on in the world, received up into glory. In 
Him the Godhead dwells bodily. He appears in this 
latter house as prophet, priest, and king. As a 
prophet, He spake as never man spake. As a priest, 



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He made an atonement for our sins by offering Him- 
self as a sacrifice. He appears as a king reigning in 
the hearts of those who believe on Him. The glory 
of the latter house will appear greater than the former 
when we consider the character, the work, and the 
present and future position of the Son of God, the 
blessed Redeemer, in this latter house. In the 
context it is said: "Thus saith the Lord of hosts, 
' Yet once it is a little while, and I will shake the 
heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land ; 
and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all 
nations shall come, and I will fill this house with 
glory, saith the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine 
and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts." Then 
follows the declaration that " the glory of this latter 
house shall be greater than of the former, and that 
in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts.'' 
In order to be better understood, let us briefly 
consider the character of Him who is the desire of 
all nations. His name is Wonderful — He is called the 
seed of the woman ; the seed of Abraham ; the hope 
of Isaac ; the prophet of Moses ; son of David ; the 
son of a Virgin. Isaiah is very bold, and says of 
Him, " For unto us a child is, born, unto us a son is 
given, and the government shall be upon His shoulder, 
and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, 
the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of 
Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace, 
there shall be no end. Upon the throne of David, and 
upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with 
judgment and with justice from henceforth even 
forever." Again, he says, "And there shall come forth 
a rod out of the stem of Jesse and a Branch shall 
grow out of His roots, and the spirit of the Lord shall 



The Glo7y of the Latter House. 209 

rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understand- 
ing, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of 
knowledge and the fear of the Lord." 

When our blessed Lord entered upon the work of 
His ministry, it is said, "He came to Nazareth where 
He had been brought up, and as His custom was He 
went into the synagogue upon the Sabbath day, and 
stood up for to read, ?«nd there was delivered unto 
Him the book of the prophet Esaias, and when He 
had opened the book He found the place where it was 
written, The spirit of the Lord is upon me because 
He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the 
poor; He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, 
to preach deliverance to the captives, to set at liberty 
them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year 
of the Lord. And He closed the book and gave it 
again to the minister and sat down. And the eyes 
of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened 
on Him, and He began to say unto them, This day 
is this scripture fulfilled in your ears." 

Thus we see that the prophecies to which we have 
referred all centre in our blessed Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ. According to His own statements, He 
is the desire of all nations, the Lord of hosts. His 
kingdom will come, and His will will be done in earth 
as it is in heaven. 

His knowledge is perfect, lacking nothing. Three 
several times Peter denied Him, as Christ had before 
told him that he would do. During one of the last 
interviews He had with His disciples before He as- 
cended to heaven, He said to Peter three several 
times, " Lovest thou me more than these ? " Peter was 
grieved at heart because He said the third time to 
him, " Lovest thou me more than these ?" And he an- 



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swered Him, saying, "Lord, Thou know est all things. 
Thou knowest that I love Thee." He saith unto him, 
" Feed my sheep." His wisdom exceeds all of our 
conceptions. " It is as high as heaven, what canst 
thou do? Deeper than hell, what canst thou know?" 
The length thereof runs through eternity, and the 
width encompasseth the universe. " If I ascend up 
into heaven, Thou art there. If I make my bed in 
hell, behold, Thou art there." His power is unlimited. 
It is not possible for the human understanding to 
comprehend the limits or extent of the power of God, 
and Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He upholds all 
things by the word of His power; He spreads out 
the heavens with a span ; He measures the sea in the 
hollow of His hand, and hangs the earth upon noth- 
ing. His nature is perfectly holy. Of Him, and Him 
only, can it be said, He was holy, harmless, undefiled, 
and separate from sinners. He never had an evil 
thought; He never spoke an evil word; He never 
did a wrong deed ; His compassion was full for all 
humanity. " It is a faithful saying, and worthy of all 
acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to 
save sinners." Covering the race of man, and every 
individual member of the race, without a single excep- 
tion, from Adam to Moses in patriarchal ages, and 
from Moses to Christ under the law, and from the 
coming of Christ to the end of the world under the 
Gospel dispensation, He is full of pity and compassion 
for all of the human race. 

For a moment, let us look at the work of Him who 
is the desire of all nations. He fulfilled the law, and 
thus made it honorable. No man beside Him did 
ever fulfill it. He made an atonement for sin ; being 
put to death for our offences, and raised again for our 



The Glory of the Latter House. 2 1 1 



justification. Let this truth be told throughout earth's 
remotest bounds. He tasted death for every man, 
when He died upon the cross. When Christ died, sal- 
vation flowed from that cross in two ways, — from the 
cross to the beginning of the world, and from the 
cross to the end of the world, embracing the whole 
human family from the beginning to the end of the 
world, without an exception. So much for the extent 
of the atonement, the benefits of which are offered to 
all them who believe this glorious truth ; for he that 
believes shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall 
be condemned. There is no salvation for the finally 
impenitent, but all things are possible to him who 
believes. He conquered death, and by His resurrec- 
tion He became the first fruit of the resurrection 
of them who sleep in death. Christ must reign until 
He has put the last enemy under His feet. The last 
enemy that shall be destroyed is death. The de- 
struction of death by Christ signified two things, — 
first, last in point of difficulty ; secondly, last in the 
order of time. 

He appointed a gospel ministry to supersede the 
ministry of the Jewish church, as it was under the 
Mosaic economy. After His resurrection He as- 
cended into heaven, where He now appears in the 
presence of God for us. He is our Great High 
Priest ; for He is the propitiation for our sins, and 
not for our sins only, but for the sins of the whole 
world. After His ascension into heaven, according 
to His promise, He sent down the Holy Spirit to 
enlighten, cleanse, purify, and guide us into all 
truth, — that Spirit which is the Comforter; the 
Holy Ghost, who, according to His promise, is to 
abide with us forever. 



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Let us consider the present and future position of 
Him who was the desire of all nations, — the Lord of 
hosts. We believe the Scriptures, and can repeat with 
confidence from the "Apostles' Creed," — "He ascend- 
ed into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God, 
the Father Almighty, and from thence He shall come 
again at the end of the world, to judge the quick and 
the dead." 

In a spiritual sense, the former house was the Old 
Testament church, or the church under the first cov- 
enant. The latter house signifies the New Testament 
church, or the church of the new covenant, which God, 
by the mouth of all the prophets, promised to estab- 
lish when Christ should come. But Christ has come 
at the end of the law for righteousness. 

Of the Mosaic economy, we are distinctly told that 
it was the shadow of good things to come ; under it, 
there was the tabernacle, containing two distinct de- 
partments in the one tabernacle. First, there was the 
holy place, which represents the visible church upon 
earth, composed otfall believers, or followers of Christ 
upon the earth ; and secondly, in it was the holy of 
holies, or the most holy place, representing heaven it- 
self, the final abode of the saints, or the invisible 
church. 

The apostles say to the visible church, Ye are 
God's house, ye are God's building. The church of 
God is called His house in I Tim. iii : 15, where it 
is said : " That thou mayest know how to behave thy- 
self in the house of God, which is the church of the 
living God." Again, in Heb. iii : 6, it is written : " But 
Christ, as a Son over His own house, whose house 
are we." In this house the promise is fulfilled that 
" I will give peace in this place." That is to say, 



The Glory of the Latter House. 213 

God promises that He will give peace to believers in 
the visible church, unto all who believe on the name 
of the Son of God. We have no reason to doubt 
that such was the meaning attached to the promise, 
that " In this place will I give peace, saith the Lord 
of hosts " 

Nothing can be more morally certain than this, — 
that the prophets foretold the establishment of the 
Christian Church by Christ and the apostles, and the 
universal spread of the Gospel. Such was the mean- 
ing of the predictions of the prophets, when they 
said : " It shall come to pass in the last days that 
the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established 
in the tops of the mountains, and it shall be exalted 
above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it. 
And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse which 
shall stand for an ensign of the people ; to it shall 
the Gentiles seek, and His rest shall be glorious." 
The Apostle Peter and his companions so under- 
stood this matter upon the day of Pentecost, when 
the Holy Ghost descended and sat upon them as 
cloven tongues of fire, at which time Peter applied 
the prophecy of Joel, in the memorable discourse 
that he delivered upon that occasion, and said : "And 
it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will 
pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons 
and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young 
men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream 
dreams. And on my servants and on my hand- 
maidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit, 
and they shall prophesy. And it shall come to 
pass, that whosoever shall call upon the name of 
the Lord shall be saved." 

The world, religiously, was in two great classes, — ■ 



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Jews and Gentiles. To Peter was given the keys by 
which the kingdom of heaven was opened to the 
Jews at Jerusalem, and to the Gentiles in Caesarea, 
the Spirit attesting the genuineness of the work in 
both instances ; and before the close of the apostles' 
clays, both Jews and Gentiles were brought within 
the one Christian Church. 

We are told that devout men from every nation 
under heaven — that is, as we understand it, through- 
out the then known civilized world — were present 
on the day of Pentecost, and heard Peter's first publi- 
cation of the Gospel under the new dispensation. 
Within a period of less than forty years, the Gospel 
was preached in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the isles 
of the sea, and particularly throughout the Roman 
Empire, which extended over, perhaps, one third part 
of the land surface of the then known world. The 
Lord added unto the church daily such as should 
be saved. Their numbers were increased, not only 
by hundreds and thousands, but by thousands of 
thousands. From that time until the present, the 
church of God has been growing and increasing both 
in numbers and strength, until now she spreads out 
her wings towards all the ends of the earth. We 
live to see the stone cut out of the mountain without 
hand, becoming a groat mountain, and filling the 
whole earth. We live to sec the fulfilling of those 
predictions, or utterances, of the prophets which point 
toward the coming of the kingdom of the Lord, which 
shall succeed all other kingdoms, and which shall fill 
the whole earth. 

We have no good reason for not believing, from 
what our eyes have seen and our cars have heard, 
that the kingdoms of this world will ere long become 



The Glory of the Latter House. 215 

" the kingdom of our God and His Christ," when and 
in which Christ shall reign triumphantly, glorious 
king over the whole earth. We are living in the 
times when the prediction is beginning to be fulfilled, 
that swords shall be beaten into ploughshares, and 
spears into pruning hooks, and " nation shall not lift 
up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war 
any more." When all of these and many other 
predictions relating to the same triumph and peace 
have had their complete fulfilment, as they will have, 
upon this earth, then shall we realize the truth that 
the glory of this latter house hath been greacer than 
that of the former. 

There is an invisible church of which the Saviour 
says : " In my Father's house are many mansions ; if 
it were not so, I would have told you ; I go to prepare 
a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for 
you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself, 
that where I am, there ye may be also." That is 
heaven itself, the most holy place. " In the world," 
said He, " ye shall have tribulations, but in me ye 
shall have peace," and this, He said, because "the 
meek shall inherit the earth and dwell in it for- 
ever," and there shall they delight themselves in the 
abundance of peace. There their " peace shall be 
as the river, and their righteousness as the waves of 
the sea " ; sorrow and sighing shall all be done away ; 
" God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and 
God Himself shall dwell with them and be their God 
and they shall be His people." "It doth not yet 
appear what we shall be, but we know that when 
He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall 
see Him as He is." 



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"There we shall see His face, 
And never, never sin; 
There, from the rivers of His grace, 
Drink endless pleasure in. 

" Yea, and before we rise 
To that immortal state, 
The thoughts of such amazing bliss 
Should constant joys create. 

" The men of grace have found 
Glory begun below ; 
Celestial fruit on earthly ground 
From faith and hope may grow 

" Then let our songs abound, 
And every tear be dry, 
We 're marching through Immanuel's grounds 
To fairer worlds on high." 

Sin may afflict us for a season, but sin is not of 
God, and must perish. It was a heathen philosopher 
who said of nature's God : — 



"No evil can from 

Thee proceed, 
'T is only suffered, 

Not decreed, 
As darkness is not 

From the sun, 
Nor mounts the shades 

Till he is gone." 

If a heathen could arrive at such a conclusion, 
derived from the light and study of nature alone, 
what faith ought a Christian to have ? It must soon 
appear that sin itself shall die. God, in the govern- 
ment of the world, both physical and moral, brings 
light out of darkness, and good out of evil. The 



The Glory of the Latter House. 217 

crucifixion of the Lord of life and glory was an evil, 
the greatest, perhaps, ever known after that of the 
fall of man. By that evil the hope of the church was 
taken away for a season, but the greatest possible 
good was the result afterward ; and hence the apostle 
Peter saith : " Blessed be the God and Father of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, which, according to His abundant 
mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope, by 
the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an 
inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that 
fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you." By 
the persecutions of pagan Rome, the spread of the 
gospel was much hindered for a time ; thousands of 
faithful men and women were made to suffer, and in 
varied forms were put to death, because they earnestly 
contended for the faith which was once delivered to 
the saints. But through the triumphs of the cross 
of Christ, Christianity became the religion of the 
empire, with a Christianized emperor at the head of 
the church ; and though church and state became 
united under this national espousal of the new faith, 
that evil wrought itself out in righteousness. 

The natural result of such a union was that vital 
piety was brought to a low ebb, while nominal 
Christianity became wealthy, proud, haughty, and 
cruel beyond description. We have heard it said 
that sixty millions of Christians became martyrs for 
the faith, but the very blood of the martyrs was made 
the seed of the church. As the result of the corrup- 
tions of papal Rome, we have the Reformation under 
Martin Luther and a host of other reformers, raised 
up under God for that purpose. If the church of the 
Reformation became contaminated, formal, cold, indif- 
ferent, dead, spiritually dead, as a result of thi? 



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deadncss, God raised up such men as Wesley, 
Fletcher, and Whitfield, and others in Europe, 
Edwards, Asbury, Allen, and others in America, 
through whose indefatigable labors and earnest 
preaching again of the doctrine of justification by 
faith only, we have "a revival of primitive Christianity 
in earnest," bringing us to these days of moral agita- 
tion and general reformation. And still the work of 
God goes on. The spirit of Christianity presses out 
into the byways and highways to effect the renova- 
tion of all our people, and national vices and crimes 
are eradicated by its power of influence. " Slavery, 
the sum of all villanies," makes its appearance in the 
new world, upon the American continent, side by 
side with New England puritanism ; and these two 
spirits enter into deadly conflict for a period of 
two hundred and fifty years. Dark, dark indeed, 
and most cruel, were the days of slavery and the 
African slave trade, but the light of truth and the 
doctrines of the cross have triumphed, and slav- 
ery has perished. It was always a curse, it never 
was a blessing. But God hath made the wrath 
of man to praise Him. To-day, as a result of the 
triumphs of light over darkness, truth over error, and 
the Gospel over the power of sin and Satan, slavery 
sleeps the sleep that knows no waking. The white, 
the black, and the red are freemen, and we are met 
here to-day as men and brothers. There is no more 
distinction on account of race, color, or previous 
condition of servitude. We have come to the 
acknowledgment of the fatherhood of God and the 
brotherhood of man. What could have forced this 
marvel of grace upon us but the spread of the truth 
of the Gospel of Christ and the infusion of the 



The Glory of the Latter House. 219 

principles of that higher civilization which has its 
foundation in the word of God ? The glory of the 
latter house hastens upon us. When peace on earth 
and good-will to men are accomplished, the glory of 
the latter house will have fully come. My prayer to 
God is, that we may all become partakers of that 
peace which bringeth to all joy, unspeakable and full 
of glory. Amen. 



I 



SUNDAY EVENING. 



THE GOSPEL LEAVEN. 



The Rev. W. F. MALLALIEU, D.D. 



THE GOSPEL LEAVEN. 



<4 Another parable spake He unto them; the kingdom of heaven 
is like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures 
of meal, till the whole was leavened." — Matthew xiii: 33. 

The most wonderful teacher this world has ever 
known was of all others the simplest. The common 
people heard him gladly, and for this reason, among 
others, — that they understood Him. Especially in 
plainness and directness, He spoke as never man spoke 
either before or since His time. He found sermons 
in stones, the withering grass, the lily of the field, the 
almost worthless sparrow, the domestic fowl, the toil- 
ing husbandman, the patient, watchful shepherd, the 
careful housewife, the devoted father, the loving 
mother ; and many, very many of the most common 
things and events and persons associated with the 
daily life of all the people served Him for illustra- 
tions of the deepest and tenderest truths. 

The chapter from which the text is taken shows 
how aptly the Lord Jesus seized upon the most com- 
mon events to impress important truth. He was in 
the presence of agriculturists, and possibly, nay, prob- 
ably, men were scattering seed broadcast in the fields 
near at hand ; so we have the parable of the sower and 
the seed ; the parable of the tares ; the parable of the 
mustard seed. And may it not be possible that 
among his auditors there were many women, for 

223 



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many women followed Him and accepted His doc- 
trine ? and turning to them, He introduced a parable 
that was founded upon one of the most frequent of 
household duties. Every woman in the company 
was interested in an instant. Here was something 
that had relation to what was entirely familiar to her. 
With her own hands she had prepared the leaven, 
with her own hands she had measured the meal and 
had mixed the various ingredients required for bread- 
making, and she knew how the process of fermentation 
had gone on until every particle of the meal had felt 
the leavening influence ; and now the Great Teacher 
enters the domain of woman's most ordinary toil, and 
finds there an illustration worthy of record on the 
pages to be read by all generations. 

''The kingdom of heaven" is a form of expression 
often employed by Jesus. It seems to be synony- 
mous with the Gospel, which we understand to be the 
proclamation of essential truths and principles de- 
signed to bless and benefit mankind. 

By the kingdom of heaven we sometimes mean 
Christianity, which is at once the summation of di- 
vine doctrine, truths, and principles, as a system of 
theoretical and practical belief, and at the same time 
is a personal, intellectual, moral, and religious devel- 
opment of the individual, and so of nations, since 
nations are only the aggregation of individuals. 

Doubtless, when Christ used the phrase "kingdom 
of heaven," He had broader and more comprehensive 
views of what constituted its theory and practice, its 
nature and results, its origin and end, than we have 
ever dreamed of possessing, even when we have come 
to our grandest conception of the Gospel or of Chris- 
tianity. He saw all the conflicts and triumphs of 



The Gospel Leaven. 



225 



the almost two thousand years that have passed since 
He spoke ; He saw the glory of these latter days in 
which we live ; and still gazing down the unmeasured 
vistas of the future, He saw the time when all the 
nations of the earth should become His possessed 
inheritance, and the knowledge of God should cover 
the earth, and all the redeemed v/orld be blessed with 
the full fruits of the gospel of peace. But instead of 
trying to describe in lofty and eloquent periods the 
kingdom of which He spoke, He used one of the 
most homely illustrations that could possibly be 
found, and yet one that is as frequently employed in 
regard to the pervasiveness and power of moral and 
spiritual ideas as any on the lips of men. The text 
invites us to the consideration of two thoughts most 
obviously growing out of the similitude or parable 
which it includes. 

1. The universality of the system of faith and ex- 
perience known as Christianity. 

2. The efficiency of Christianity. 

It is certainly a most remarkable fact that, not- 
withstanding the peculiar segregation of the Jewish 
people, in a most inaccessible country, and notwith- 
standing their extreme race bigotry, and their strange 
exclusiveness, there is yet manifest in all the records 
of the Old Testament a purpose on the part of God 
to provide the possibility of salvation for the whole 
world. In fact, from the tenor of the first promise 
given to our first parents down to the last recorded 
utterance upon the subject in the Scriptures of the 
Jews, it is easy to see that it was not the design 
of God to limit His love and mercy to any par- 
ticular nation or race. "In thy seed shall all the 
nations of the earth be blessed " was an all-exclusive 



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promise, that reached to the last and remotest family 

of humanity. 

And yet there were reasons why God should call 
Abraham out from among his own people and per- 
manently separate him from his home and kindred. 
And there were reasons why He should give the 
children of Israel a home and an inheritance in a land 
that was most wonderfully cut off from all other 
lands. And there were reasons why, in the develop- 
ment of the Christian dispensation, the Gospel should 
first be proclaimed to the Jews, and why Christ, the 
Saviour, should be born in Judea, and why in every 
city where the apostles went in their earliest mis- 
sionary journeys the Hebrew people should be sought 
out, and the offers of life and salvation first be made 
to them before the Gentiles were addressed. 

Still, when we come to examine the facts of the 
case, we shall see that the Lord Jesus again and 
again declared in a great variety of ways that the 
work of redemption and salvation He had come to 
earth to perform was not limited by any social, race, 
or political boundaries. The Samaritan leper was 
cleansed as well as the nine afflicted Jews who were 
his companions, and strange to tell, the Samaritan 
was the only one who returned to give thanks to the 
Great Physician. The child of the alien woman of 
Syro-Phcenicia was healed, though the disturbed 
and narrow-minded disciples would have sent her 
away unblessed. The sinning woman of Samaria 
heard the gospel from the lips of the Master Himself, 
and found pardon and salvation, and was honored by 
being permitted to call many others to the feet of 
Jesus, and so to become the pioneer of the woman's 
missionary societies, whether foreign or domestic. 



The Gospel Leaven. 



227 



And not only did Christ thus receive and bless those 
who were not Jews, He also put Himself into such 
relations to the poor, the unfortunate, and the sinful, 
that He left no room for doubt concerning the uni- 
versality of the scheme of salvation. Publicans, how- 
ever hated and despised, sinners, even the outcast 
and abandoned, however vile, were not beneath His 
infinite and ever-blessed helpfulness, nor beyond the 
reach of His all-embracing, changeless love. 

Doubtless, it was difficult for His Jewish disciples, 
with all their intense prejudices, to rise to the plane 
on which their divine Master walked. How it could 
be that the Gentile world should be entitled to all 
the privileges of the sons of Abraham, how it could 
be that they should come into the enjoyment of the 
Gospel, and not take upon themselves the yoke of the 
Mosaic law, was a problem which occasioned many a 
prolonged discussion in the infant church at Jerusa- 
lem. Certain it is that it took a special and impera- 
tive revelation and command to induce Peter to go 
and preach the gospel to the humble and sincere 
seeker after God, the Gentile centurion Cornelius. 
The only one of all the apostles that seemed to grasp 
at once the thought of Jesus in regard to the univer- 
sality of the provisions of divine mercy was Paul. 
And why not ? For, many times distrusted by his 
fellow-disciples, and hated and ostracized by his 
former Jewish friends and associates, and persecuted 
even to the death by Jews and Gentiles, he came to 
the comprehension of the fact that depraved human 
nature is much alike in all men, and hence all need 
the Gospel, and hence God in His infinite goodness 
had provided a salvation which was intended to em 
brace the whole family of man. 



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The questions of race, and birth-place, and out- 
ward circumstances of whatever character, do not 
affect the case at all. The same God over all is rich 
unto all that call upon Him. All are His children 
by creation, all have been preserved by His fatherly 
care, all still bear some likeness, however faint and 
vanishing, to the divine original ; all are redeemed by 
the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. The 
wide world may be searched, ay, the depths of hell 
may be explored, and not one child of Adam shall be 
found for whom the amplest provision was not made 
in tjie glorious atonement wrought out by the cruci- 
fied Son of God. Ay, the weakest of the weak, the 
strongest of the strong ; the honored and the de- 
spised ; the youth just commencing a life of trans- 
gression, on whose soul there is only one single 
plague-spot of sin, and the wretched wanderer, who 
has gone away from God and heaven until the gloom 
of coming despair falls athwart his pathway, — all have 
an interest in the salvation offered them in the divine 
and heavenly system of Christianity. The soul-in- 
spiring thought is that Nero on his throne, and the 
helpless, hopeless slave bought and sold in the mar- 
ket-place, have equal rights under the Christian dis- 
pensation. In all this multitude of people gathered 
in this house of God, there is not one for whom the 
gates of pearl may not swing wide open to welcome 
from earth and sin ; and should these portals be 
thronged each Sabbath for a century to come, no one 
will ever enter here for whom Christianity has not 
the promise of a hundred-fold of blessing in this life, 
and in the world to come, life everlasting. And 
when in years to come, my brother, the pastor of the 
church, in his missionary visits shall find the outcast, 



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the wanderer, the victims of appetite, the fallen, the 
homeless, the despairing, the sick, the dying, thank 
God, he will never meet a human being in all the 
streets and lanes, in all the damp and dingy 
cellars, in all the noisome, stifled attics of this great 
city, for whose salvation the infinite heart of the gra- 
cious God does not yearn, and for whom there is not 
hope in the love and sacrifice and intercession of 
Christ. 

The message of the angel choir that sung in honor 
of the Saviour's birth contained good tidings of great 
joy to all people. The bleeding victim, when He 
bowed His head on the cross of Calvary, tasted death 
for every man. The last word of a risen and glorified 
Jesus to the race for which He suffered and died is, 
' Whosoever will, let him come and take of the 
water of life freely." 

In the second place, let us consider the efficiency 
of Christianity. 

The leaven hid in three measures of meal was not 
inactive ; it made its presence felt, it filled the mass 
with life, it changed the nature and conditions of 
the last particle. From centre to circumference, it 
asserted its dominion. Its influence was beneficent. 
It worked silently, but surely. 

Christianity is emphatically efficacious in securing 
beneficent results. There have been and there are 
systems of government, religion, and philosophy that 
have wrought powerfully among mankind ; they have 
turned and overturned, but the results attained have 
not been for the profit of humanity. Men have for- 
saken the old for the new, in the ever-living hope 
that by such a course, good would be realized. But 
despite the promises of the originators of these va- 



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rious systems, the sad fact has been abundantly 
demonstrated that human wisdom has always failed 
to meet the varied and unspeakable needs of man ; 
and, in most cases, time has shown the failure of 
these systems to improve the condition of the peo- 
ple. On the other hand, the advancing centuries, 
now numbering almost a score, prove most conclu- 
sively that the results of Christianity have been 
everywhere and always most beneficent in their 
character. 

Nor should the fact be overlooked, that these 
results are invariably secured by peaceful means. 
Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, and other conquerors 
gained their dominion by the use of force ; they 
crushed the weak, and overthrew the strong ; they 
depended most upon brute force. " God is on the side 
of the heaviest artillery " was the atheistic word of 
the heartless warrior. The most potent argument of 
these world-subduers is the sword, and their course 
is marked by burning cities, devastated fields, and 
slaughtered thousands. They are the scourges 
rather than the benefactors of mankind. 

We well know that the means employed by Chris- 
tianity to attract and subdue the human heart are of 
the most peaceful character. Christianity commenced 
with a song, sung by the earth-visiting sons of the 
morning. We have its chorus left on record, "Glory 
to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will 
toward men ! " And that song, that chorus, will con- 
tinue to be sung by men and angels till the earth is 
enwrapped with its melody. 

The soul-conquering argument which Christianity 
has ever relied upon, is love. It must move by per- 
suasion, if it move at all. That is not Christianity 



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which seeks to compel the acceptance of its dogmas 
by resort to the sword, the fagot, the block of the 
executioner, the terrors of the Inquisition. That is a 
brutal, barbaric travesty of Christianity. Real Chris- 
tianity depends for its success upon the enlighten- 
ment of the understanding, the convincing of the 
judgment, and the persuasion of the emotional na- 
ture, supplemented always by the benign co-oper- 
ation of the Holy Spirit. These, and these alone, 
are the forces which have made Christianity a success, 
and which promise, in the not distant future, to make 
its triumphs universal and permanent. 

Again, the efficiency of Christianity is seen in what 
it has actually accomplished for nations, for society 
at large, and for various special classes. 

William Gladstone, alike distinguished as states- 
man, scholar, Christian, has well illustrated the 
thought ; he says, " No poetry, no philosophy, no 
art of Greece, ever embraced, in its most soaring 
and widest conceptions, that simple law of love 
toward God, and toward our neighbor, on which 
two commandments hang all the law and the proph- 
ets, and which supplied the moral basis of the new 
dispensation." 

There is one history, and that the most touching 
and most profound of all, for which we should search 
in vain through all the pages of the classics. I mean 
the history of the human soul in its relation to its 
Maker, — the history of its sins, and grief, and death, 
and of the way of its recovery to hope and life, and to 
enduring joy. For the exercise of strength and skill ; 
for the achievements and enchantments of wit, of 
eloquence, of art,- of genius ; for the imperial games 
of politics and war, — let us seek them on the shores of 



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Greece. But if the first among the problems of life 
be how to establish the peace and restore the bal- 
ance of our inward being; if the highest of all condi- 
tions in the existence of the creature be his aspect 
towards the God to whom he owes his being, and in 
whose great hand he stands, — then let us make our 
search elsewhere. 

All the wonders of the Greek civilization heaped 
together are less wonderful than is the single book of 
Psalms. Palestine was weak and despised, always 
obscure, oftentimes and long trodden down beneath 
the feet of imperious masters. Greece for a thousand 
years, " confident from foreign purpose, repelled 
every invader from her shores, and fostering her 
strength in the keen air of freedom, she defied, and 
at length overthrew the mightiest empires ; and 
when finally she felt the resistless grasp of the mas- 
ters of all the world, them, too, at the very moment of 
her subjugation, she herself subdued to her literature, 
language, arts, and manners. Palestine, in a word, 
has no share in the glories of our race: they blaze on 
every page of the history of Greece, with an over- 
powering splendor. Greece had valor, policy, renown, 
genius, wisdom, wit, — she had all, in a word, that this 
world could give her ; but the flowers of Paradise, 
which blossom at best but thinly on earth, blossomed 
alone in Palestine." 

But it has conic to pass that the flowers of Paradise, 
which once bloomed alone in Palestine, are now to be, 
found the product and the glory of many lands. The 
precious seed, ripened under favoring suns, and 
wafted onward by the loving care of God, has taken 
root in widely scattered nations. True, it has been 
watered with the tears and enriched with the life- 



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233 



blood of confessors and martyrs of all the ages, but 
it has more than repaid all of toil and sacrifice that 
it has lost. And, marvellous to relate, these won- 
drous flowers of Paradise bloom with equal beauty and 
fragrance, whether beneath the blazing sun of the 
tropics or amid the snows of the polar circle. 

Again, it is most obvious that Christianity has 
brought to humanity the most abundant blessings, 
and has revolutionized society and governments in 
the interest of the weak, the poor, and the humble. 
It was a great thing for the vast multitudes of toil- 
ers in this working world that Jesus and Peter and 
John and James and Paul were artisans, that thev 
wrought with calloused hands for the bread they ate. 
When the Master entered upon His brief ministry, He 
passed directly from the labor of the mechanic to the 
proclamation of the new kingdom of righteousness 
He had been commissioned to establish. He had 
learned by actual experience how to sympathize with 
the poor, how to walk the path of weariness trod by 
the vast majority of mankind. He has made himself 
forever the companion and friend of the working 
man. " In thus ennobling manual labor, He laid the 
foundation for one of the greatest reforms wrought 
by Christianity ; he elevated it from the degradation 
in which it had been held by ancient society, which 
was simply a society of conquerors and conquered, 
of idlers and slaves. All the conditions of heath- 
en life were overturned by this reform. In this 
way the Christian artisans of the great cities of the 
Roman Empire become the pioneers of the greatest 
social reforms." 

It is this same element in Christianity which has 
made it the relentless foe of all forms of slavery. Just 



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so sure as the divine doctrines of the fatherhood of 
God and the brotherhood of man, as taught by the 
Gospel, are received and acted upon, all yokes and 
chains must be broken and cast aside, and freedom 
becomes the possession of every human being ; men 
and woman are no longer things, chattels, but the 
recognized sons and daughters of the Lord God Al- 
mighty. Christianity will yet destroy every form of 
tyranny upon the face of the earth, and even now, 
the dawning of the day that shall see our hopes and 
prayers completely realized, is lighting up the hori- 
zon of the future. 

The fact is too often overlooked, that Christian- 
ity secures the greatest possible good for children. 
When Jesus uttered those words of ineffable ten- 
derness, " Suffer the little children to come unto 
me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom 
of heaven," he placed all childhood under immeas- 
urable obligation. It was a new revelation of love ; 
ii enriched all human affection ; it lifted the clouds 
of sin, and let the sunlight of Eden shine into our 
earthly homes. Every little child is the special care 
of the Lord Jesus. He counts them for His own. 
Living, He watches over them, and dying, as so 
many of them do, they go from our fond embrace to 
the immediate presence of Jesus and the changeless 
joy and love of the heavenly world. 

Above all, Christianity has done for woman what no 
other system of philosophy or religion has ever done 
or even attempted. It found her, at the very best, the 
mere toy and plaything of man, and in most cases 
she was considered as an inferior being, and hers was 
but little above the condition of slavery in all the so- 
cial relations of life. She was the drudge of the house- 



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235 



hold, she was simply a beast of burden, denied even 
the claim of immortality, and consigned without hope 
to a life of joyless suffering. But all this has been 
changed. Christianity, wherever prevalent, has made 
woman the companion of man, has claimed for her 
all her rights, and delivered her from the degrad- 
ing thraldom into which she had been cast by the 
brutality and strength of man. It is no wonder that 
so many women are Christians, no wonder that, from 
the days of the cross and the sepulchre to this hour, 
they have shown the rarest and purest devotion to the 
Saviour ; for, great as are the blessings Christianity 
brings to man, they are exceeded and outnumbered by 
those with which it glorifies the life of woman. 

Christianity not only promises the grandest triumphs 
for our redeemed humanity, but it confidently points 
to supremest victories already achieved. It has over- 
thrown the idols and altars of vain superstitions; it 
has enlightened ignorance; it has carried comfort to 
the criminal and the outcast ; it has benefitted the 
unfortunate and the suffering ; it has opened the prison 
doors, and struck off the shackles of the enslaved; it 
has gone down to the very lowest, and lifted them up, 
and put a new song in their mouths, and established 
their goings ; it has restrained the power of the 
strong ; it has filled the world with song and sun- 
shine. 

The followers of Christ may proudly point to every 
civilized community and claim for Christianity all that 
makes home a blessing and life worth living. Even 
the wonderful progress that has marked the last hun- 
dred years in all the arts and sciences, in all the dis- 
coveries, inventions, and appliances for the amelioration 
of the condition of mankind, is due to Christianity. 



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Within that time the wildernesses of this world have 
been made to bud and blossom as the rose, and the 
desert places have been filled with beauty and fra- 
grance because of the life-giving influence of Chris- 
tianity. Within that time whole nations have turned 
from the worship of dumb idols to the service of the 
living God, and the most inspiring experiences of 
the pentecostal church have been reproduced. More 
and more, man triumphs over the rude material of 
which this planet is composed, and compels the sub- 
tlest and mightiest forces of the universe to do his bid- 
ding, while, with brow lighted with the assurance of 
further conquests, he walks the earth in his kingly 
power, securing the recognition of the fact that at 
the first he was created in the image and likeness 
of God. 

Again, the efficiency of Christianity is especially 
manifest in what it accomplishes in our individual 
experience. 

"Christianity is a divine act, which continues to 
operate through all ages of the world, and that not in 
the first place outwardly, but inwardly, in the depths 
of the soul." "It reforms and elevates society at 
large by reforming and ennobling the individual." 
It goes to the very heart of things. It has to do 
with the innermost thought, the hidden motive, the 
unrevealed source of all action. Its purpose is single, 
and its methods are simple ; and after all other 
attempts to bless mankind have failed, it does not 
despair or even falter. It encourages education, the 
highest possible healthful and symmetrical intellectual 
development, but it never offers culture as the pana- 
cea of human ills ; it sanctions philosophy, it is itself 
a divine philosophy, but it knows that " philosophy 



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237 



can do nothing which religion cannot do better than 
she ; and religion can do a great many things which 
philosophy cannot do at all." 

Christianity comes to a wretched world, to a 
sinning, suffering race, to self-destroyed immortals, 
and it offers hope, life, salvation, both for time and 
eternity. It provides means by which the guiltiest 
soul may, even in this life, come to the conscious 
blissful experience of pardon for all past offences and 
transgressions and sins. It contemplates and prom- 
ises, on terms available to the weakest, a re-creation 
of the inner nature of man, so that in his thoughts 
and plans, his aspirations and tendencies, he shall 
come to be in complete harmony with the will of 
God. It offers and supplies a regenerative and re- 
constructive force which makes all things new, and 
enables the believing soul to advance to the stature 
of a perfect man in Christ Jesus, so that, " being 
strengthened with might by His spirit in the inner 
man," and at the same time being " rooted and 
grounded in love," even the humblest soul may come 
to " comprehend with all saints what is the breadth 
and length, the depth and height, and know the love 
of Christ which passeth all knowledge, and at last 
be filled with all the fulness of God," and so, whether 
living or dying, constantly possess that unspeakable 
measure of peace and comfort which constitute the 
substance of the heavenly rest of the redeemed and 
sanctified soul. 

For the defence, the propagation, and illustration 
of Christianity as now set forth, this building, as we 
hope to become for generations the house of God and 
the gate of heaven to many, many souls, has, after 
these long and weary years, been completed. Know- 



238 The Peoples Church Pulpit. 

ing its history from first to last ; watching with in- 
tense and sympathetic interest the progress of the 
enterprise, involving such labor, self-denial, and self- 
sacrifice, and loyalty to high convictions of duty to 
the Master and to the souls of the perishing; getting 
now and then some glimpses into the heart-life of 
the two chief toilers in this undertaking, one of 
whom, fair, gentle spirit, has sunk beneath the load, 
— how vividly have come to mind those words of the 
great poet, — 

" Ah ! from what agony of heart and brain, 
What exultation trampling on despair 
What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong, 
What passionate outcry of a soul in pain," 

burdened for the vast masses of the unsaved and 
uncared-for of this great city, have risen up the 
walls of this edifice in which we are now so happily 
assembled. 

We will not wish the sainted ones back to this 
world of the dying, but we cannot help thinking how 
those whose names and deeds are recalled to us by 
these memorial windows would rejoice had they been 
permitted to share in the privileges of this auspicious 
hour. 

How much we have missed from the great congre- 
gations that have crowded this vast temple three of 
those who were most interested in its erection ! The 
earliest to fall was Etta Hamilton Graves, a pure and 
spotless soul, who walked the earth in white, and who, 
by her rare powers of song, cheered the hearts of all, 
and who, by her loving words and ways, made all 
others' burdens lighter. Her hands have struck the 
golden harp of heaven and her song mingles with the 



The Gospel Leaven, 



239 



chorus of the redeemed. Then followed our own 
Bishop Gilbert Haven, whose love for the city of his 
pride and home led him to plan and sacrifice for the 
success of this work of unwavering and boundless 
faith. His Christlike tenderness and affection em- 
braced the poor and friendless of every clime, color, 
and race, and in his heart he desired for them a Sab- 
bath home, where all might worship God as the chil- 
dren of one Common Father. He all too soon left 
the toil and battle, where his voice and arm and 
resolute soul were so much needed, to enter the ranks 
of the crowned and glorified in heaven. And then at 
last, despite all our love and prayers, Julia Battelle 
Hamilton, who for so many years had devoted all to 
this great work, passed from her earthly to her heav- 
enly home. Was there ever truer friend, more loving 
wife, more tender mother, more affectionate daughter, 
more consecrated Christian ? Year after year, pa- 
tiently, constantly, faithfully, she gave her life to this 
noble cause, and, then, when so near the realization 
of her fondest, brightest dreams, her burden became 
too heavy, and she too bowed in death; and so she, 
through great tribulations and cross-bearings, entered 
into the holy companionship of the saints.in light. 

What joy of victory would thrill these, our dear 
departed friends, could they be here to participate in 
our gladness and thanksgiving ! Perhaps, even now, 
from the celestial heights they look down upon us, and 
rejoice in the consummation of their faith and labors; 
for surely they do not forget us, nor cease to love us, 
and after all, it may be that heaven is not so remote 
and inaccessible as we have sometimes thought, and, 
listening, may we not hear them say, " Be true and 
faithful even unto death, live for the poor and outcast, 



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show forth the blessedness and glory of Christianity, 
be glad to follow Jesus in all His life of sacrifice and 
self-denial for the salvation of souls, and then, when 
life ends, we will wait to welcome you to the final 
reunions, the blissful rest, and the exalted service of 
an eternal heaven." 

" Oh, may the prospect fire 

Our hearts with ardent love, 
Till wings of faith and strong desire, 
Bear every thought above. 

" Prepared by grace divine 

For thy bright courts on high, 
Lord, bid our spirits rise, and join 
The chorus of the skv ! " 



SUNDAY MORNING. 



The Avowal of Christian Assurance. 



J. W. HAMILTON, Pastor. 



THE AVOWAL OF CHRISTIAN 
ASSURANCE. 



" I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power o{ 
God unto salvation to every one that believeth ; to the Jew first, and 
also to the Greek." — Romans i. : 16. 

Contemptuousness is a weapon no more worthy 
of the defense of intelligence than contumacy is a 
weapon worthy of the defense of integrity. The one 
not infrequently provokes the antagonism of the 
other. Knowledge and virtue, handmaids of the 
Great King whose we are, and whom we serve, are 
the twin sisters of that matchless love with which He 
hath loved us. Wherefore, then, should they not 
always be at peace ? " Love worketh no ill to his 
neighbor," But, strange as it may be, Christ Jesus 
came not into the world to send peace, but a sword. 
His foes were they of His own household. When 
righteousness and peace should have kissed each 
other, pride parted them, and insolence made them 
enemies. The King of saints, in the presence of sin, 
became the King of terrors. Arrogance, always the 
servant of pride, has gone on errands of wrath, before 
the Gospel of Christ, into the whole earth. The 
evangelists were everywhere met by the supercilious 
airs of his inquisitive sneers, and the apostles only 
silenced his impertinence by a boldness i aspired of 
the truth and earnestly sincere. 

243 



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The People s Church Pulpit. 



Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an 
apostle, separated unto the Gospel of God, was more 
a victim of this contemptuousness of pride than any 
other of the apostles ; but the incomparable defense 
with which his manliness of soul met such arrogance 
caused the very Sanhedrim to vex themselves, and 
Felix, the governor, to tremble. He had but a single 
answer, whether he addressed the mob from the 
stairs, near the temple in Jerusalem, when they 
cried, "Away with him!" or disputed on Mars Hill 
when the Epicureans treated him with scorn, say- 
ing among themselves, "What doth the babbler 
mean?" — "he preached unto them Jesus and the 
resurrection." 

These words, which I have selected to consider 
this morning, are a part of his message to the people 
of the great metropolis, before whose wisdom and 
culture he was as much at home "as among other 
Gentiles." There is no obsequiousness of manner or 
speech to be gathered from the message, nor is there 
any undue " adulatory freedom ; " the form of address 
is courteous, manly, straightforward, and of becoming 
dignity ; without apology, and bravely ingenuous. " I 
am a debtor," said he, " both to the Greeks and to the 
barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise. So 
as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the Gospel 
to you that are at Rome also. For I am not ashamed 
of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God 
unto salvation to every one that bclieveth ; to the Jew 
first, and also to the Greek." 

The gravity of such a message was evident, not 
only from its truthfulness and importance, but from 
the comparison at once instituted between the people 
of this great nation and the simple, unannounced 



The Avowal of Christian Assurance. 24S 

preacher of the new Gospel. The circumstances 
environing people and preacher included the two 
extremes of contrast, and were promotive of every 
form of pride and arrogance on the one hand, and 
disappointment and discouragement on the other. 

The apostle had come to the great city of " a polite 
and powerful empire," where he found "the agreeable 
history of the arts" connected with "the more use- 
ful history of human manners ; " where one of the 
emperors "was accustomed to boast that he had 
found his capital of brick and that he had left it of 
marble." He found the inhabitants "striving with 
each other in every useful and ornamental work that 
might deserve the curiosity of strangers or the 
gratitude of the citizens." " The opulent senators 
of Rome, and the Provinces esteemed it an honor, 
and almost an obligation, to adorn the splendor of 
their age and country, and the influence of fashion 
very frequently supplied the want of taste or 
generosity." "The golden palace of Nero excited 
a just indignation, but the vast extent of ground 
which had been usurped by his selfish luxury was 
more nobly filled under the succeeding reigns by 
the Coliseum, the Baths of Titus, the Claudian 
portico, and the temples dedicated to the Goddess 
of Peace and to the Genius of Rome." These monu- 
ments of architecture, the property of the Roman 
people, were adorned with the most beautiful 
productions of Grecian painting and sculpture, " and 
in the Temple of Peace a very curious library was 
open to the curiosity of the learned." The Forum 
of Trajan, with its lofty portico, triumphal arches, 
and column of marble, was but an instance of the 
marvellous conception and skill of the Romans. 



246 The People 's CJiurch Pulpit. 

"The most remote countries of the ancient world 
were ransacked to supply the pomp and delicacy of 
Rome." The timbers employed in the construction 
of the Odeum, which was designed by Pericles for 
musical performances, " consisted chiefly of the masts 
of the Persian vessels." "The love of letters, almost 
inseparable from peace and refinement, was fashion- 
able, and diffused over the whole extent of the empire ; 
the most northern tribes of Britons had acquired a 
taste for rhetoric ; Homer as well as Virgil was 
transcribed and studied on the banks of the Rhine and 
Danube, and the most liberal rewards sought out the 
faintest glimmerings of literary merit. The sciences 
of physic and astronomy were successfully cultivated 
by the Greeks, and the observations of Ptolemy and 
the writings of Galen were studied by those who had 
improved their discoveries and corrected their errors." 
" Domestic peace and union were the natural conse- 
quences of the moderate and comprehensive policy 
embraced by the Romans. The obedience of the 
Roman world was uniform, voluntary, and permanent. 
The established authority of the emperors pervaded, 
without an effort, the wide extent of the dominions, 
and was exercised with the same facility on the 
banks of the Thames, or of the Nile, as on those 
of the Tiber." "In art, in literature, in philosophy, 
in laws, in the mechanism of government, in the 
cultivated face of nature, in military strength, in 
aesthetic culture, the Romans were our equals." 
Such is the account given by Gibbon and other 
students of Roman history, of the civilization and 
refinement of the people when Paul directed his 
attention toward the city which sat on the Seven 
Hills. 



The Avowal of Christian Assurance. 247 

And so great had been the influx of foreign ele- 
ments and the degradation of the morals that Tacitus 
said: "They make a desert, and call it peace." 
Seneca also said : " More crime is committed than 
can be remedied by restraint ; wickedness has pre- 
vailed so completely in the breast of all, that inno- 
cence is not rare, but non-existent." And Juvenal 
hopelessly affirmed : " Posterity will add nothing to 
our immorality: our descendants can but do and 
desire the same crimes as ourselves." 

The Romans had debauched themselves by ambi- 
tion, pride, and lawlessness. "They did not seek," 
says Dr. Lord, "to prevent irreligion, luxury, slavery, 
and usury, the encroachments of the rich upon the 
poor, the tyranny of foolish fashions, demoralizing- 
sports and pleasures, money-making, and all the fol- 
lies which lax principles of morality allowed." And 
of the emperor, Nero, who was in the fifth year of his 
reign when the epistle was written, he also says : 
" Lost to all dignity and decency, he indulged in the 
most licentious riots, disguising himself like a slave, 
and committing midnight assaults. He killed his 
mother and his aunt, and divorced his wife. He sung 
songs on the public stage, and was more ambitious of 
being a good flute-player than a public benefactor. It 
is even said that he fiddled when Rome was devas- 
tated by a fearful conflagration. He built a palace 
which covered entirely Mount Esquiline, the vestibule 
of which contained a colossal statue of himself, one 
hundred and twenty feet high. His gardens were the 
scenes of barbarities, and his banqueting halls of or- 
gies which were a reproach to humanity. He wasted 
the empire by enormous contributions, and even 
plundered the temples of his own capital. His wife, 



248 The People s Church Pulpit. 

Poppaea, died from a kick which she received from 
this monster because she had petulantly reproved 
him." 

It is not difficult to imagine what the religion of 
such a people, in such an age, would be. Canon Far- 
rar has said : " It is certain that the old paganism 
was, except in country places, practically dead. The 
very fact that it was necessary to prop it up by the 
buttress of political interference shows how hollow 
and ruinous the structure of classic polytheism had 
become." The upper classes were "destitute of faith, 
yet terrified at scepticism." "They had long learned 
to treat the current mythology as a mass of worthless 
fables, scarcely amusing enough for even a school- 
boy's laughter, but they were the ready dupes of every 
wandering quack who chose to assume the character 
of a mathematicus or a mage. Their official religion 
was a decrepit theogony; their real religion was a 
vague and credulous fatalism, which disbelieved in the 
existence of the gods, or held with Epicurus that they 
were careless of mankind. The mass of the populace 
either accorded to the old beliefs a nominal adherence, 
which saved them the trouble of giving any thought 
to the matter, and reduced their creed and their mor- 
als to a survival of national habits ; or else they 
plunged with eager curiosity into the crowd of for- 
eign cults, among which a distorted Judaism took 
its place, such as made the Romans familiar with 
strange names, like Sabazius and Anchialus, Agdistis, 
Isis, and the Syrian goddess. All men joined in the 
confession that ' the oracles were dumb.' It hardly 
needed the wail of mingled lamentations, as of depart- 
ing deities, which swept over the astonished crew of 
the vessel of Palodes, to assure the world that the 



The Avowal of Christian Assurance. 249 

reign of the gods of Hellas was over, that 'great Pan 
was dead.' " " There were, indeed, a few among the 
heathen who lived nobler lives and professed a purer 
ideal than the pagans around them, but the stoicism 
on which they leaned for support amid the terrors and 
temptations of that awful epoch utterly failed to pro- 
vide a remedy against the universal degradation. It 
aimed at cherishing an insensibility, which gave 
no real comfort, and for which it offered no adequate 
motive. It aimed at repressing the passions by a 
violence so unnatural that with them it also crushed 
some of the gentlest and most elevating emotions. Its 
self-satisfaction and exclusiveness repelled the gen- 
tlest and sweetest natures from its communion. It 
made a vice of compassion, which Christianity incul- 
cated as a virtue ; it cherished a haughtiness, which 
Christianity discouraged as a sin. It was unfit for the 
task of ameliorating mankind, because it looked on hu- 
man nature in its normal aspects with contemptuous 
disgust. Its marked characteristic was a despairing 
sadness, which became specially prominent in its 
most sincere adherents. Its favorite theme was the 
glorification of suicide, which wise moralists had se- 
verely reprobated, but which many stoics belauded as 
the one sure refuge against oppression and outrage. 
It was a philosophy, which was indeed able to lacerate 
the heart with a righteous indignation against the 
crimes and follies of mankind, but which vainly strove 
to resist, and which scarcely even hoped to stem, the 
ever-swelling tide of vice and misery. For wretched- 
ness, it had no pity ; on vice, it looked with impotent 
disdain." 

But who was Paul ? And with what announcement 
had he come to the gates of the Eternal City ? The 



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words of the epistle were, most probably, written in 
Corinth, but they were directed to a people of Rome 
who were soon to see the writer in their midst. He 
was neither king nor prince, and came not with the 
trappings of the potentate, nor even the announce- 
ments of wealth, position, or influence. His school 
of learning could not have commended him, and his 
associations had already condemned him in the city 
from which he had come. Had he remained a Jew, 
" Rome, the proudest part of the heathen world, enter- 
tained the most contemptuous opinion of the Jews." 
But he was despised of the Jews, who sought to kill 
him, and had fled from the wrath of a rabble who held 
the sanctity of their own synagogues in contempt when 
he stood up to read or to speak in them. He was but 
a proselyte to the faith and service of a king who had 
appeared without a kingdom, and was now dead, hav- 
ing died the shameful death of the cross, and that 
a Roman crucifix. Will they hear him ? Could we 
have expected the great city of so great an empire 
to give attention to one so meanly accredited, — to 
one who would have been held in contempt as the 
mere vassal of their anger ? The hauteur of our best 
intelligence would have found it difficult, if trans- 
ferred to those days and to his presence, to have 
permitted him a respectful consideration. 

But this man of Tarsus, like his Master, despised 
and rejected of men, had come to the conquest of the 
whole Roman world. The Caesars in their sepulchres 
were to hear the tread of the now invincible, and then 
potential empire, which was to raze the greatness of 
their people to the level of their own departed glory, 
and reveal a kingdom which had foundations that 
could never be moved. We look not at this man 



The Avowal of Christian Assurance. 251 

now to remember him just entering the gates of the 
great city as the unknown prophet of a forgotten 
prophecy ; nor to recall him even later, when he comes 
as a prisoner to trial, bound between soldiers, and 
met along the Appian Way by a few " strangers of 
Rome, Jews, and proselytes," who were willing to 
share in his humiliation; nor are we come to con- 
fess merely, as he said of himself, that he was " not a 
whit behind the very chiefest apostles," or simply to 
acknowledge that he is justly honored above all others 
as the Great Apostle of the Gentiles. But we see 
him now, back of the long line of empire, through the 
shadows of the Vatican, whose very architecture is 
but the insignia of the kingdom he came to estab- 
lish, more a marvel of human history than the great 
Caesar himself. As the Man of Nazareth had wrought 
a new life, and opened up to the Jews the hope of a 
kingdom which should be an everlasting kingdom, so 
this " Brother Saul," whom Ananias had ordained, 
and who did " confound the Jews which dwelt at 
Damascus," we now see as the great preacher of 
righteousness, who was "set to be a light of the 
Gentiles," which " shouldest be for salvation unto 
the ends of the earth," come to the "harlot city" to 
turn and overturn, and order a new life and civiliza- 
tion more inspiring and recreating than came, or 
could come, of any "drooping Muses" 

" From the famed city by the Propontic Sea." 

The measure of his resources was the power of en 
durance and procreation given to the new kingdom 
which he came to establish. Persecution and mar- 
tyrdom shadowed the holy revolution with mystery, 
and a threatening extinction of the spirit of the new 



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tidings, which came to announce gladness and peace ; 
but centuries of tyranny and subjection could not 
subdue the work oi this man from Macedonia. It 
was not three hundred years until " the greatest 
religious change in the history of mankind had 
taken place under the eyes of a brilliant galaxy of 
philosophers and historians, who treated it as simply 
contemptible," and Christianity rose to the supremacy 
of the Roman empire. If afterward the w gathering 
nations sought the fall of Rome," and "it cost Europe 
a thousand years of barbarism to escape the fate of 
China," and a pagan hierarchy succeeded to the 
throne of the Caesars, there was, nevertheless, hid- 
den away like the leaven in the meal, a spirit of life 
which quickened the thought and resuscitated the 
pulse of the western nations ; and thus awakened, 
still later, the renascence, from which, said the bril- 
liant author of "The Story of the English People." 
" experimental science, the science of philology, the 
science of politics, the critical investigation of re- 
ligious truth, all took their origin." If the papacy 
has traduced the higher forms of the Christian faith 
and experience, to unworthy and unholy purposes 
and practices, " the old order changeth, giving place 
to new," and the struggle of Rome reveals an unmis- 
takable determination to obliterate every reminder 
of the older paganism,— to destroy the glory of the 
old empire, if they build an idolatrous new one. 
Along the archways and through the colonnades of 
the old city, the mockery of her emperors, and their 
pagan institutions, can be seen canonized in stately 
forms and ceremonies, more imperial and impe- 
rious than 

" The last 

That wore the imperial diadem of Rome " 



The Avowal of Christian Asstirance. 253 

when she was mistress of the world. The claims 
of his highness, the Pope, calling himself vicegerent 
of God on the earth, may not be less extravagant 
than the assumed prerogatives of the most heathen 
rulers ; but this sacred successor of all the great 
emperors, with his sacerdotal court, which he works 
" from princes into pages," would now make of the 
Mamertine Prison, from which the humble apostle 
was taken to judgment, a temple of worship more 
honored than the houses of the great kings. St. 
Peter's, the achievement of centuries, and incompar- 
ble study of artists, has been erected in memory of a 
less honored apostle than this calm and unknown 
author, now quietly penning the words of the text 
in the silence of his hidden home among his Corin- 
thian brethren. 

He was the coming conqueror, because of his mes- 
sage. He was as worthy of honor then as now. 
Could the invisible pageantry which . attended him, 
when a bondman, swinging his chains between the 
Roman soldiery, or pacing the floor of his dungeon 
the day of his doom, been seen by the citizens of 
Rome, there would have been an announcement of 
his coming and presence, such as he would receive if 
he were to return in person to the papal palaces 
to-day. He came a messenger from the King of 
kings, and his honors were not borrowed from prin- 
cipalities and powers in the earth. Paul, a prisoner 
of Jesus Christ for the Gentiles, had received the 
dispensation of the grace of God, that by revelation 
had made known unto him the mystery, which in 
other ages was not made known unto the sons of 
men, whereof he was made a minister, according to 
the gift of the grace of God, given unto him by the 
effectual working of his power. 



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The phases of life and conduct which were cur- 
rent among the people in that first century of the 
church's history were not local nor peculiar, not 
Roman nor Jewish. The passions of men, influenced 
by the prejudices of heredity, education, and circum- 
stance, only differ from period to period as the spirit 
of the age in which they live may cause them to 
differ ; and the methods of dealing with the 
thoughts and feelings of men remain the same in 
all ages, except in so far as they may also be influ- 
enced by the spirit of the age. Pride has consumed 
the intelligence of the people in every age ;_and 
divine revelation, at no time, will yield its methou 
of approach and influence before the claims of this 
tyrant of the affections. The Gospel of Christ 
glories in its history, and through every ministry re- 
peats the story of its humble origin, and pursues its 
lowly work of lifting up the fallen. The first Preacher, 
himself, confessed that He was a servant. His birth- 
place was the unnatural heritage of even poverty ; 
His father was a tradesman ; His disciples were 
fishermen ; and the distinguishment of His ministry 
was in the fact that the poor had the Gospel preached 
to them. He never conferred with pride nor wisdom. 
The same Paul also declared to the accomplished 
Corinthians, that he came not with excellency of 
speech, or of wisdom, declaring unto them the testi- 
mony of God. He desired that their faith should not 
stand in the wisdom of men. 

The nature and claims of the Pauline method fur- 
nish the only successful and satisfactory issue which 
could be reached among men, by the revelation made 
known unto the apostle on his way to Damascus. 
There was a divine sagacity, a discernment of the 



The Avowal of CJiristian Assurance. 255 

fitness of things, in the employment of these methods 
by the apostle for the advancement of the early 
Christian Church. Indeed, the very philosophy of 
the power of the Gospel was therein evident. Its 
universal necessity and availability, and the coopera- 
tive plan of propagating it, make its approach to all 
men a matter of the simplest methods and instru- 
mentalities. Not only the illiterate are the subjects 
of its grace, but childhood is embraced in its plan. 
The unlearned and the children are to spread its 
benefits abroad. As the Gospel is not the need 
of the scholar alone, so the Gospel, does not em- 
ploy school-men alone for its dissemination. Every 
son of man ought to be a representation of Jesus 
himself. 

This simplicity of aptitude for receiving the Gos- 
pel, and the employment of children, the poor, the 
unlearned, and even the dishonored, in preaching its 
truth, have excited the prejudices of the proud, the 
wise, the rich, against it. And when there was added 
to such pride, the pagan objection that it was some 
new thing, can we wonder at the task of the apostle 
as he entered the city of Rorne ? 

Let us look for a moment, however, at the nature 
of the assurance which inspired the courageous 
avowal with which he met the contemptuousness of 
the Romans. There was no contumacy in his spirit 
or manner ; but he proposed a rational measurement 
of every difficulty he was to meet, and declared the 
adequacy of his message to meet and overcome it. 
His letter of credit he carried from his own personal 
experience, as he testified to the church in Galatia : 
" I certify you, brethren, that the Gospel which was 
preached of me is not after man ; for I neither re- 



256 The People s Church Pulpit. 

ceived it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the 
revelation of Jesus Christ." And he further declared 
that it was the only Gospel to be preached : "Though 
we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other Gos- 
pel unto you than that which we have preached unto 
you, let him be accursed." The nature of Paul's as- 
surance is therefore to be attributed to the nature of 
the Gospel itself. Gospel signifies glad tidings ; but 
in the New Testament, the Gospel is only the glad 
tidings of Christ and His salvation. Paul very clearly 
defines that by the Gospel he means the Gospel 
scheme, the plan -of redemption through Christ, com- 
prising all its doctrines, precepts, promises, and privi- 
leges. This he was now come to preach to the 
Romans, concerning which he wrote : " I am not 
ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power 
of God unto salvation to every one that believeth ; 
to the Jew first, and also the Greek." 

That there can be no mistake in the meaning of the 
apostle is evident from his frequent statement of the 
same things, but in differenHorms, according to the 
various people whom he addresssd. He delivers a 
statement of the doctrines he preaches to the Romans 
in the first eleven chapters of this epistle, and what 
relates to the necessity and importance of the virtues 
and duties of the Christian life, as embraced in the 
three succeeding chapters ; but he only states at 
length and more fully, with the applications to be 
made to the Roman people, the same truths which he 
utters in giving his experience to the early church, 
or in making his defence before Agrippa, or in declar- 
ing to the Greeks on Mars Hill a knowledge of the 
God whom they ignorantly worshipped. No briefer 
summary of the Gospel, equally applicable to the 



The Avowal of Christian Assurance. 257 



Romans, is given by the apostle than in the address 
to the Athenians : — 

"Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too 
superstitious. God that made the world and all things therein, 
seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in 
temples made with hands, neither is worshipped with men's 
hands, as though He needed anything ; seeing He giveth to all 
life and breath and all things, and hath made of one blood all 
nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and 
hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of 
their habitation. 

" That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel 
after Him, and find Him, though he be not far from every one 
of us. 

" For in Him we live, and move, and have our being ; as cer- 
tain also of your own poets have said, For we are also His 
offspring. 

" Forasmuch, then, as we are the offspring of God, we ought 
not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or 
stone, graven by art and man's device. 

"And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now 
commandeth all men everywhere to repent. 

"Because He hath appointed a day, in the which He will 
judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath 
ordained ; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in 
that He hath raised Him from the dead." 

Idolatry is here rebuked, the fatherhood and brother- 
hood of the race are declared, the providence of God 
is stoutly affirmed, and men are called upon to re- 
pent, and promised a merciful judgment by Jesus 
Christ our Lord, whom God hath raised from the 
dead, whereof the apostle was himself a witness. In 
his appeal to the Romans, found in this first chapter 
of the epistle, Paul sets forth essentially the same 
things, as Dr. Adam Clarke has distinctly enumer- 
ated in his comment upon the fifth verse. " Here is," 
he says, " first, the Gospel of the Son of God ; sec- 



253 The People s Church Pulpit. 

ond, an apostle divinely commissioned and empow- 
ered to preach it ; third, the necessity of faith in 
the name of Jesus as the only Saviour of the world ; 
fourth, of obedience, as the necessary consequence 
of genuine faith ; and fifth, this is to be proclaimed 
among all nations, that all might have the opportunity 
of believing and being saved." The conquest of the 
world by Christianity was now begun. Paul had 
turned against his own nation with the same bold- 
ness with which he first entered into the persecution 
of the Christians. " While the glimmering taper of 
the stoics was burning pale, as though amid the 
charnel-house, the torch of life, upheld by the hands 
of the Tarsian tent-maker and the Galilean fisher- 
man, had flashed from Damascus to Antioch, from 
Antioch to Athens, from Athens to Corinth, from 
Corinth to Ephesus, from Ephesus to Rome." 

The aim of the apostle as of the gospel was through 
the salvation of men, the salvation of the world. " I 
am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the 
power of God into Salvation to every one that believ- 
eth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." Could 
there ever have appeared a salvation at a more oppor- 
tune time to any people, than at the time when Paul 
is announced in Rome ? When before or since has 
there appeared in the earth such a combination of vice 
and splendor, depravity and royalty, shame and pride? 
Who " could have divined that four such rulers as 
Tiberius, Gaius, Claudius, and Nero — the first, a san- 
guinary tyrant ; the second, a furious madman ; the 
third, an uxorious imbecile; the fourth, a heartless 
buffoon — would in succession afflict and horrify the 
world?" A national salvation, redemption, and re- 
storation had often been the study of princes and the 



The Avowal of Christian Assurance. 



259 



problem of kings, the attempt of many a suffering 
people, whose resort had been to revolution and bat- 
tle ; but here was a national restoration promised, 
which confined itself to a ministry of doctrine and 
personal or individual salvation. The great leaven 
hidden away in this new Gospel had been a stranger 
on the earth until now. We marvel at the little 
which we find in the Old Testament Scriptures, re- 
ferring to individual reformation and personal purity 
of heart and life. We see a people led of God and 
inspired by their revelation to seek a permanent 
situation and stability of government for themselves, 
but the work of God on human spirits, we find, is 
almost a hidden truth to them. They are looking 
forward constantly to a Promised Land, a Holy 
City, and the establishment of the throne of David, 
but the kingdom of God within them has not yet 
been set up. There is so little revealed of even 
the heavenly world, that men have been found to 
disclaim any very definite teaching upon the sub- 
ject by the writers of the Old Testament. But we 
are now come to a New Testament, to a system of 
truth whose doctrines, though plain and simple, are 
the power of God unto salvation. Even the miracu- 
lous confirmation given to the new revelation, by the 
first Great Teacher and His immediate followers, is 
only an incident in the history of its great work. 
Men are now to believe unto salvation. All men are 
to believe unto the salvation of all. But to unify all 
belief, that is the work of the Gospel. It is the only 
revelation which can make such unity and secure 
such unanimity. It must have in it — and this is its 
claim that it does have in it — that which can satisfy 
all inquiry, harmonize all reasoning, and employ all 



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classes of persons. Every form of life, private 
and official, social and political, is now to be 
regenerated by this new system of doctrine ; even 
the Roman cidtus must give way before its civiliza- 
tion and refinement. What a wonderful truth 
this was ! Wonderful in its prophecy, wonderful 
in its genesis, wonderful in its history ! During 
hundreds of years writers in different places and 
at different times had announced the coming of the 
Great Teacher who was to reveal himself in right- 
eousness, and in no essential particulars had the 
prophecies failed to agree or to be fulfilled. In its 
genesis this great new truth was supernaturally 
announced, born of miracle, and sustained by the re- 
peated working of other miracles. What other revela- 
tion to men had been so divinely substantiated ? In its 
history it had kept pace with its promises, and though 
it had come but recently, the fact of the resurrection 
of the dead had already been demonstrated, the day 
of Pentecost had fully come with its three thousand 
converts, and its disciples were turning the world 
upside down. 

The Founder of this new kingdom had said to His 
disciples : "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard 
seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence 
to yonder place, and it shall remove ; and nothing 
shall be impossible unto you." The adequacy of this 
faith, and the sufficiency of the Gospel, were guar- 
antees of salvation to the uttermost, — a salvation 
from individual guilt and sin, and a regeneration of 
nations by saved individuals ; the one man saved, until 
a whole nation of ones had been saved. This was a 
new revelation to the individual, that his soul could 
be saved. The first consciousness of the possibility 



The Avowal of Christian Assurance. 261 



of such salvation is a wonderful revelation. I once 
sat in a room in my home, many years ago, with the 
captain of an ocean steamer, when a company , of 
young people were holding a prayer-meeting in 
another part of the house. He was an earnest, 
thoughtful, and active man, but not a Christian. 
We distinctly overheard the young people singing : 
" Then in a nobler, sweeter song, . 
I '11 sing Thy power to save." 

and for the moment all conversation was hushed, and 
we found ourselves, without any pre-arrangement, all 
listening intently to the singing. As these lines 
were repeated, the man of the sea turned to me 
with a countenance as full of sincere inquiry as it 
was possible for the human countenance to express, 
and he said with a childlike frankness, " Mr. Hamil- 
ton, if I could sing of any power to save me, I would 
give one thousand dollars right here, to-night." The 
candor and suddenness of the man's remark* for the 
moment made me think very rapidly, and a wonder 
of grace swept across my soul, with a flood of 
light, like the bursting of a summer evening sky to 
let in the electric lights. When I saw the man's 
consciousness written in his eye that he was unsaved, 
and felt that gladness of soul which assured me that 
he could be saved, I said, " Captain, those young 
people know what they are singing ;" and though he 
was not to be saved that night upon any such finan- 
cial plan, and had not come to my house upon any 
such errand, I cannot but feel that the man who, 
years afterward, came to rejoice in his personal 
salvation, had that night caught sight of his re- 
demption. What a marvel of revelation, to a Roman 
citizen, patrician or plebeian ! And come out of 



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Judca! If to the Jews it had been a confusion, 
what foolishness to the Romans ! This was the 
light which Paul carried to the Gentiles. That 
proud, fashionable, heathen Rome could thus be en- 
lightened, was the possibility of the Gospel he had 
come to preach to the benighted city. 

But it was not the mere enlightenment which the 
Gospel was to afford the Roman people ; it was not 
an exhibition of a theory or indeed of the theory of 
salvation. This ministry of the apostle not only 
revealed a system of doctrines, which taught that 
God could be just, and yet "the justifier of him 
which believeth in Jesus," but a system of life in- 
wrought, by which the believer became conscious 
of his new state, and felt constrained to hate sin and 
put it from him ; he became possessed of a new 
energy, which was of the truth, and yet was more 
than the truth. It was the power of the truth be- 
come the life of the believer. It was the divine 
energy working in the soul of the new creature. 

The Kingdom of God is righteousness. This word 
applies to the nature as well as to the conduct of the 
individual. In the nature there must be a right 
being, and in the conduct a right doing. A right 
being is not an impersonation of character, to be 
assumed and thrown off like a mask. If there is one 
doctrine of the Christian church, more than another, 
impressing itself upon Lhe unbelieving and worldly- 
minded, it is the doctrine of regeneration. Men need 
a regeneration of nature, and know they need it ; 
that they may be right before men as well as before 
God. To resolve to put off the old nature and put on 
the new by some simple law oj exchange is not a 
philosophical plan of salvation, Such a plan would 



The Avozval of Christian Assurance. 263 



be very well illustrated by an incident which occurred 
in one of our New England Sunday School Conven- 
tions. One of the speakers at the children's meeting 
was illustrating the condition and needs of the heart 
by means of his watch. " This watch," said he, 
"was bought in Boston at one of the best watch 
stores; but it won't go. The mainspring, I find, is 
broken. Children, what must I do with it ? " While 
he was waiting for an answer, and expecting to hear 
some one say, " Take it back to the store from whence 
it came and have it mended" ; a little fellow in the 
back of the room held up his hand, with something 
of mischief in his eye to show that he was ready to 
answer. " Very well," said the Sunday school man, 
"What do you say?" "Trade her off," cried the 
boy, with an air of triumph. Paul once said, " When I 
was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a 
child, I thought as a child," but he added, "when I 
became a man, I put away childish things." It 
was not until he became a man, that he put away 
childish things. So there is only one way of putting 
"off the old man with his deeds," and that is by 
putting " on the new man which is renewed in knowl- 
edge after the image of Him that created him." 
The twaddle about growing into goodness and 
developing by some process of natural evolution into 
a Christian character and usefulness is short-lived. 
Purifying takes .fire, and soul-purifying takes fire 
from heaven. The priests of Baal may bow down 
and call on all the creatures in heaven and earth for 
help, and knife themselves in their despair and 
agony, but only God can send fire, and fire which 
will lick up the water of unbelief; and He will when 
men will pray but unto Him. Here was a work a 



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Roman could not do ; and all Rome was as impotent 
as the one Roman. The Jew with his ceremonies 
could not effect this newness of truth and life. It 
had not been revealed to him in the law. The power 
to make new natures and right beings is not in the 
righteousness which is of the law. Paul knew the 
infinite resources of this new Gospel, and how im- 
possible it would be for any other power than that 
which it revealed to effect the salvation of even the 
believer. It is the power of God which must effect 
the salvation of every one that believeth. If it is 
admitted that there is a God over all, it must be He, 
and only He, who can be an authority ; who can 
furnish a revelation, a system of truth adequate to 
either a personal salvation or a national salvation. 
If there could be no power of God unto salvation 
we would distrust the saving. The only -security 
against the great sin of the world to the soul which 
may suffer and be lost, is and must be the power of 
God. The nature of the work to be accomplished 
in the soul demands the infinite ability. No solution 
of the problem of sin can be possible, except God be 
represented in the cure and help of the sinner. In 
the metaphysical analysis of sin and its relation to 
the moral government of the universe, there is no 
conception of any possible adjustment which does 
not involve the divine mind and divine act. It is 
the power of God only which can bring salvation to 
every one that believeth, to the Jew first and also to 
the Greek. 

By what possible prerequisite could such truth be 
made universally available ? There was but a single 
condition to the universal availability of this new 
Gospel ; the one feature common to all men was 



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265 



selected as the condition of this salvation. Not all 
men were rich, nor indeed were all poor ; all were 
not white ; and the only equitable provision which 
could be possible for all was that which was made. 
Faith was therefore not an arbitrary appointment, 
but a philosophical one, All men can believe, but 
what else they can universally do, it is difficult to 
know. Now, if the general definition of faith is a 
dependence on the veracity of another, something 
more than a mere " speculative knowledge of and 
bare assent to the truths revealed in the Scripture" 
must be understood as the necessary condition to 
salvation. It is all of this, but more. There must 
be a surrender of self in the acceptance of the truth, 
to the fullest measure of the demands made by that 
truth upon both the heart and the life. Then will 
a saving grace be wrought in the soul by the Spirit 
of God, whereby Christ is received as he is revealed 
in the Gospel to be the Prophet, Priest, and King, 
and then will that soul " trust in, rely upon Him 
and His righteousness alone, for justification and 
salvation." Thus did Paul preach and Rome receive 
the Gospel of Christ. 

The evidence that the Gospel of Christ is the 
power of God unto salvation, finds abundant con- 
firmation in the peace and satisfaction of the believer, 
and in the march of its triumph. No believer ever 
discredits the power and work of the Gospel. Its 
graces are the evidence of its genuineness, its peace 
the measure of its assurance. In his conversation 
with Nicodemus, the first preacher of this new 
Gospel said, " Verily, verily I say unto thee, we 
speak that we do know, and testify that we have 
seen." Eighteen hundred years of personal assur- 



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ance is an argument irrefutable and irresistible, 
And as this assurance reveals itself to you as well 
as to me, and is no respecter of persons in its 
promises, the church in Rome no less than the 
church in Corinth, but no more than the church in 
every place, repeats itself in the preaching of the 
power of God unto salvation. 

The evidence that the Gospel of Christ has been 
all that Paul promised the people at Rome it would 
be, is given in the survival and growth of the 
Church to which it was first committed. This 
has been the encouragement from generation to 
generation, which has inspired confidence and led 
the disciples everywhere to believe that this Gospel 
shall yet be preached in the whole earth, and that its 
universal triumph shall prove its divinity of origin 
I could not credit the economy of God in this world, 
if I believed He held a business in hand which ran 
behind every day that it ran ; you and I would close 
our accounts and put the bolts on the door, with 
such deficiencies driving us mad. God is no more 
prodigal of His resources and work. If you ask 
me to indicate where Christianity is at work in the 
earth, I'll ask to be shown where its power and 
influence are not. Where now is the power of 
Pagan Rome? Where now are any of the Pagan 
crovcrnments of the old world ? Where now are 
the cities of the old world,? And where their art 
and literature ? Civilization to-day is nothing less 
than Christianity at work in the earth. Christ Jesus 
is fast touching every fact of life with His presence 
and power. Every department of the world's work 
throbs with the virtue gone out of the Man of 
Miracles. What wore the arts and sciences, the 



The Avowal of Christian Assurance. 267 

trades and politics and religions of the world 
to-day without Him ? The beauties of the Parthe- 
non never rose to the dignities even of the Cathedral 
at Cologne. Who among the ancients knew the 
touch of the pencil as seen in the hands of Raphael ? 
Has not Christ set his own name to the notes of 
the music of the world ? Christian geography began 
with the Jew first, but it has gone since with the 
Greek also. You can hear it to-day knocking at the 
door of the nations of the earth, and beseeching the 
islands of the sea. If you listen, you may hear its 
cry unto them on the wings of the morning, " Lift 
up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye 
everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come 
in." And what shall I say of its future triumph? 
I mean not its conquests in the earth only. It has 
unlocked the gates of the evening, and turned the 
earth back on the light of the sun. There can be no 
more night now. Death is only the door-way of the 
morning. The redeemed shall walk there, and the 
ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to 
Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their 
heads ; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and 
sorrow and sighing shall flee away. I am not- 
ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power 
of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, 
to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. 



SUNDAY AFTERNOON. 



The False and True Love for Christ. 



The Rev. J. H. ViNCENT, D.D 



FALSE AND TRUE LOVE FOR CHRIST. 



"And he said unto Him, Lord, Thou khowest all things. Thou 
knowest that I love Thee." — John xxi : 17. 

When Peter stood that day by the Sea of Galilee, 
and looked into the face of Jesus Christ, he saw the 
most remarkable character in human history. What- 
ever may have been Peter's thought at the time, con- 
cerning the worth and dignity of the one to whom he 
spoke, we, who live in this nineteenth century after 
the ages have gone by, .are filled with wonder at the 
nobility of Jesus' character and the divinity of His 
work in the world. Even those who refuse to ac- 
knowledge the miraculous elements in His life con- 
fess Him superior to all men on His moral side. 
Strauss, the German rationalist, declares that 
"Among the improvers of ideal humanity, Jesus 
stands in the very first class, . . . and remains the 
highest model of religion within the reach of our 
thought." Renan, the French historian and sceptic, 
says : " Jesus is unique in everything, and nothing 
can compare with Him. . . . He is a man of colossal 
dimensions. . . . Whatever may be the surprises of 
the future, Jesus will never be surpassed. His wor- 
ship will grow young without ceasing; His legend 
will call forth tears without end ; His sufferings will 
melt the noblest hearts ; all ages will proclaim that * 
among the sons of men there is none greater than 

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Jesus." Byron, at the thought of this wonderful life, 
cries out : " If ever man was God, or God man, 
Jesus Christ was both." Paul, who knew Jesus 
Christ in the kingdom of His grace, and who knew 
Him also as the King of Glory, beheld Him, the 
Beloved, "far above all principality, and power, and 
might, and dominion, and every name that is named, 
not only in this world, but also in that which is to 
come." And the church has sung : — 

" Angels, archangels glorious, 
Guard of the church victorious, 

Sing to His name. 
Crown Him with crowns of light, 
One of the Three by right, 
Love, majesty, and might, 

The great « I Am.' " 

It was into His face whom sceptics, philosophers, 
apostles, and poets have glorified, that Peter looked ; 
and it was to Him that Peter said: " Lord, Thou 
knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee." 
Peter in saying this made a great claim for himself. 
It is a great thing for one in a gallery of art, looking 
upon a master-piece, to say : "I appreciate and de- 
light in this painting." A man must himself be 
something of an artist thoroughly to enjoy a work of 
art. It was a great thing for a man like Peter to 
look upon a man like Jesus and say : "Thou knowest 
that I love Thee." But Peter said it. 

You and I are somewhat puzzled to know how 
Peter could, with his recent record, make such a 
profession. It was but a short time before that he 
had solemnly declared, " Though all men forsake 
Thee, yet will not I ;" yet he was one of the first to 
forsake and flee from his Master in the hour of trial. 



False and True Love for Christ. 271 

It was this same Peter who, when charged with be- 
ing a follower of Jesus, replied, " I know not the 
man ; " it was this same Peter who, with oaths, in 
the high priest's palace, declared, " I know not the 
man ; " and now, but a few days after, Peter, look- 
ing into the face of Jesus, says : " Lord, Thou knowest 
all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee." 

Did Peter in this profession mistake ? It is eas- 
ily possible for any one to mistake in this matter. 
One may admire certain separate acts in the life of 
Christ, and confound the natural admiration with 
genuine love ; nothing is more common. One may 
in this way look upon that picture of Christ taking 
little children in His arms and blessing them, speak- 
ing sweet words that have come down through the 
centuries : " Suffer the little children, and forbid them 
not to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of 
heaven." Who can look upon that matchless pic- 
ture, and see His condescension and gentleness to- 
wards children, and not admire Him ? 

Take that scene (which, whatever the revisionists 
may say concerning it, addresses itself to my heart 
as a divine record) where the woman is brought into 
the presence of Christ for condemnation. A bitter 
charge is pronounced by Scribes and Pharisees. 
Christ said : " Pie that is without sin among you, let 
him first cast a stone at her. n Then He writes 
something on the floor of the temple. When He 
lifted up His eyes He found that, " convicted by 
their own conscience, one by one they had gone 
out." Then He turned to the woman, prostrate in 
her guilt and grief, and said : " Hath no man con- 
demned thee ? " And she answered : " No man, 
Lord." Then He said : " Neither do I condemn 



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thee. Go, and sin no more." Can one read this 
record without tears ? 

Again, I see the Master in the garden of Geth- 
semane, where that final testing of character is made. 
In depths of grief which no man can fathom, He 
cries : " If it be possible, let this cup pass from me. 
Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt." A 
few moments later He stands at the gate of the gar- 
den, the armed crowd coming forward with authority 
to address Him. " Whom seek ye ? " He asks. They 
answer: "Jesus of Nazareth." He said unto them : 
" I am He." He who was a few moments ago pros- 
trate under the weight of agony, now stands a 
conquering hero in the presence of his enemies. 
" For as soon as He had said unto them, I am He, 
they went backward and fell to the ground." 

My hearers, one may read all these remarkable 
pictures and find tears in his eyes, while his heart 
swells with admiration at the gentleness, the grace, 
the submission, the heroism of Christ, and yet with 
all these natural feelings excited, he may not love 
Christ at all. 

Sometimes we contemplate Christ, and the truth 
of which He is the centre, in the light of our aesthetic 
natures, and find in a religion of poetry, sentiment, 
and ceremony, a substitute for genuine love. The 
lofty arches of the great cathedral, the storied win- 
dows, the dim religious light, statues in snow-white 
marble, swinging censer, fragrant incense, the hush 
of the studied and appointed silence, the tinkling bell, 
"the organ swell and choral harmony," — all these 
impress us, and under the spell we may bow in awe 
before the Great Unknown, and fancy that, because 
we arc thrilled through and through by the solcm- 



False and True Love for Christ. 273 

nity and majesty of the service, we love Christ, and 
yet we may not love Christ at all. 

We may hear effectively read, or we may sing with 
enthusiasm, the hymns of Zion : — 

" Rock of Ages, cleft for me, 

Let me hide myself in Thee ! " 

" Jesus, lover of my soul, 

Let me to Thy Bosom fly." 

" O Jesus, King most wonderful, 
Thou Conqueror renowned, 
Thou sweetness most ineffable, 
In whom all joys are found." 

" Jesus, the very thought of Thee 
With sweetness fills my breast, 
What must it be Thy face to see 
And in Thy Bosom rest ?" 

" Martyrs whose mystic legions, 
March o'er yon heavenly regions, 

In triumph round and round, 
Wave, wave, your banners wave, 
For Christ our Saviour clave 
For death itself a grave 

In hell profound." 

All these we may hear or sing, and tremble with 
awe or delight, fancying that this temporary emotion 
is love for Christ. We may enjoy it all, and not love 
Christ at all ; for there is a love aesthetic, abstract, 
ideal, unreal ; a love that swells in psalm and song 
andliturgic form ; a love that rejoices in rich rhetoric, 
and expends itself in words, words, words. It looks 
at the mountain through a prism, and has a child's joy 
in color and mystery ; but it forgets the majesty of the 
mountain, and never climbs it for exercise, vision, or 
security. 



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One may be devoted to the church ; may stand by 
his own branch of it with great loyalty ; may be 
proud of its progress ; may honor his church over 
other churches ; may fancy that his enthusiasm for 
the church — the church denominational or the 
church catholic — is an evidence that he loves Christ. 
One may be a loyal devotee at the shrine of a de- 
nomination, and not love Christ at all. 

One may experience certain natural processes 
which simulate the interior work of grace, and fancy 
that he loves Christ because his intellect and emotions 
have been for the moment reached and affected by 
the restatement of the great evangelical truths, and 
because he has been committed by some public act 
to an acknowledgement of these truths, and because 
he finds following such act a temporary calmness or 
peace of mind. One may pass through the glow and 
excitement and intensity of a religious revival, and 
not love CJirist at all. 

I have in Italy looked through open gateways, 
and have seen frescoed on distant walls, mountains 
and valleys, groves and fountains ; but no cool breezes 
are wafted from them, no crystal water comes for 
one's refreshing, and from the painted towers no al- 
pine bells ring out. One may plant waxen flowers 
that are very beautiful ; but the rain breaks them, or 
the sun melts them, and what looked like life is seen 
to be but a pretence. 

Was Peter deceived when he said : " Lord, Thou 
knowest that I love Thee ? " May we be deceived ? 
Cannot a man certainly know whether or not his 
love for Christ be genuine ? Yea, verily, my friends, 
and to the test let us come to-day. 

True love delights in the distinguishing elements 



False and True Love for Christ. 275 



of a character, and desires and endeavors to appro- 
priate them. When I love an object, I love the qual- 
ities that distinguish it, and put forth every effort to 
make those qualities my own. I can easily tell 
whether or not my love for Christ is genuine. Let 
us humbly and devoutly to the task, and find out, if 
we may, what are the distinguishing features of that 
remarkable character whom we to-day study, and then 
determine whether or not we seek to appropriate and 
delight in them. 

I. When I study the life of Jesus on earth, the 
revelation of God to man, I find one characteristic 
from the very beginning to the very end of His 
career, making Him different in the entirety of His 
life from every other man who has lived on the 
earth. Some men have been artists, sculptors, paint- 
ers, students of human nature, authors, orators. Jesus 
Christ carved no statue, painted no picture, wrote no 
book. I may put his life into one great word, one 
royal word, full of strength and inspiration to those 
whose hearts throb in sympathy with Him ; it is that 
rugged word righteousness. As a boy in the tem- 
ple, He asks : " Wist ye not that I must be about my 
Father's business?" At His baptism He said to 
John : " Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh 
us to fulfill all righteousness." Before His advent 
He declared through the prophets : " I delight to do 
Thy will, O God." When on earth He said: " My 
meat "is to do the will of Him that sent me. " Jesus 
Christ, from the divine standpoint, looked on God's 
law, and gave His life to implicit obedience. 

He looked on man from the divine standpoint, and, 
loving righteousness in God, He sought to promote 
righteousness in man. He loved " whatsoever things 



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are true, whatsoever things are just." Loving 
righteousness, He hated inquity. He took no rose- 
water view of human life. While He had the largest 
and tenderest sympathy for the penitent, there were 
no thunders loud enough, nor lightnings sharp 
enough, to express His hatred of sin, sham, hypocrisy , 
and every sort of human inquity. I know indeed that 
He turned to the guilty, tearful woman with words of 
pardon and of gentle counsel; but he turned upon 
Scribes and Pharisees with His sharp, "Ye hypo- 
crites, how can ye escape the damnation of hell ? " 

Jesus Christ stands before all the ages as the re- 
presentative of the highest moral standards, — loving 
righteousness and loathing sin. You could not per- 
fume, polish, beautify, or apologize for sin so as to 
make Him delight in it; you could not make it so 
popular that it could secure His acceptance. He 
never asked whether men approved or not. Standing 
firm as the everlasting rock on righteousness, His life 
was a protest against sin, and a perfect illustration of 
truth, love, fidelity, and obedience to God. 

Are you ready for the practical, personal applica^ 
tion ? Do you love righteousness ? Do you loath 
sin, — polished sin, refined sin, perfumed sin, fashiona- 
ble sin, elegant sin, — do you hate it ? Do you loath 
yourselves when you have for a moment yielded to 
its charm ? Do you bow prostrate before God, 
and speak bitter things against yourself because you 
have spoken apologetic words for it, or been led into 
a momentary indulgence of it ? Do you love right- 
eousness, — righteousness that may make you soli- 
tary, righteousness that may bring against you the 
finger of contempt ? Do you stand for righteous- 
ness in politics, righteousness in religion, righteous- 



False and True Love for Christ. 27 'J 

ness in business, righteousness in society, right- 
eousness everywhere ? If you have that great 
strong response of righteousness in your heart, 
when you see Christ standing before you, you may 
say': "Thou knowest that I love Thee." It is easy 
to love weak and silly sentiment : it is not easy for 
unregenerate human nature to love uncompromising 
and eternal righteousness. 

II. The second characteristic of Jesus, by which we 
may test the genuineness of our love for Him, is His 
delight in helping others. "He pleased not Himself." 
He did not build for Himself in Jerusalem a palace 
of cedar. He did not covet a comfortable and hap- 
py life. He did not seek enjoyment in society, — 
His own gratification and the gratification of His 
friends. He did not aim at a high reputation among 
men ; nor at success, as men gild things and call 
them "success." "He went about doing good." 
Early in the morning, late at night, — doing good; 
doing good in Galilee ; doing good in Samaria ; 
doing good in Judea ; doing good beyond the Jordan , 
doing good to His friends ; doing good to His foes ; 
doing good from the beginning of the year to the end 
of it. He was a perpetual fountain of good to 
others. 

See Him in the ship on the Sea of Galilee, when 
the disciples were frightened by the storm, and 
awakened Him with their cries for help ! Wearied 
and exhausted with the labors of the day, He could 
sleep, though the ship rolled, though the lightning 
flashed, and the winds howled ; He could sleep (to use 
a beautiful figure of Dr. Horace Bushnell) as a 
mother can sleep who has been watching for weeks 
a, child whose life has all the while been trembling 



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in the balance. The storms may beat, the house 
may tremble, she sleeps on ; but let that child turn 
on its pillow, or breathe a little harder than usual, 
and instantly she is awake to catch the first indi- 
cation of the child's necessity. So could Christ sleep 
through everything until His disciples wanted help 
and at once He came to them, — a God of power, — 
and gave them deliverance. 

Christ loved to help. He loved to minister to the 
lowliest and to perform for them the lowliest ser- 
vices. 

Do you love to help ? Is the aim of your life self- 
enjoyment, self-gratification, self-indulgence, the ac- 
cumulation of property, the holding on to property, 
the personal enjoyment of property ? Or do you love to 
give what you have for the good of others ? There are 
these two classes of people in every community all 
over the earth, — people who live for themselves, and 
people who live for humanity. Jesus Christ lived 
entirely for others. Can you endure that test ? The 
question is not, Do you see beauty in benevolence ? 
The question is not, Do you think that you could 
have washed His feet, watched with Him through 
his agony in Gethsemane, plucked the thorns from 
His brow on Calvary ? Imagination yields large har- 
vests, but the bread and wine of dreams cannot feed 
hungry bodies or hungry souls. Do you visit and 
sympathize with the sick and weary and poor and 
remorseful ? " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one 
of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it un- 
to me." 

III. Jesus Christ helped others in the highest things 
of life. It is a comparatively easy thing to give 
bread to a hungry man, or to visit him when he is in 



False and True Love for Christ. 279 

physical pain or trouble. It is an easy thing to help 
in these external matters. But to help in spiritual 
things requires a greater degree of carefulness, and 
self-denial, and effort. Jesus Christ wrought miracles 
of healing, not for the sake of the body to be healed, 
but for the sake of the soul to be taught. He cured 
the deaf, the blind, the lame, the leprous. Why ? Not 
so much to show that He has power to restore these 
normal physical conditions to man, but to show that 
His gospel, coming to the world, is able to heal the 
spiritual evil of which these outward infirmities are 
but the physical expression and illustration. He 
lived, suffered, and died that He might help men in 
the highest things of life. He continually cared for 
souls. There are men who, when they speak to the 
multitude, look upon them as so many critical 
hearers, who may say when it is all over, " That was 
admirably well done ; " " That elocution was good ; " 
"That rhetoric was fine;" "That argument was 
strong." But there are other men who speak to 
souls, thinking of moral guilt and its cure, of the 
great peril and of the glorious hopes of man as a spirit- 
ual being. Jesus Christ thus always looked upon His 
disciples and hearers as upon immortal souls, who 
needed sympathy and healing power. 

How do you feel towards the souls of men ? I 
know it is a very difficult thing to speak upon spirit- 
ual subjects, and it is possible to omit them entirely ; 
I know it is an empty thing to talk to people about 
spiritual things, when your life in their presence 
gives the lie to the words you speak : but when 
a man lives an honest, upright, earnest life, seek- 
ing to do righteousness, and to serve God and 
help men, it is possible for him to keep in mind con- 



280 The People s Church Pulpit. 

tinuaUy the spiritual interests of those whom He 
meets. I know women who conduct their whole 
lives on the rules established by the society of this 
world, asking, "What does society think? What 
does society demand ? What do other people do ? 
What says social law ? " Forgetting, meanwhile, 
the spiritual condition and demands of their families, 
and living wholly for this present life. I know moth- 
ers whose morning and evening prayers go up to 
God for the children, that they may be led into the 
divine life ; for husband and father, that he may be 
strengthened in divine service ; for herself, that by 
all gentleness, patience, and fidelity, she may illus- 
trate to her children and husband the power that 
abides in the gospel of Christ. I know business men 
who consider it their duty to conduct themselves 
with honesty and integrity in the transactions of 
daily business in order to the spiritual well-being of 
those with whom they come in contact. When you 
help others, is it in the higher things of life ? Do 
you talk to people about these things ? Do you seek 
to influence people ? Do you order your home lives 
in the interest of religious life and of immortal des- 
tiny ? You may thus know whether or not you love 
Christ. 

The last characteristic of Christ which I present is 
this : He not only loved righteousness, and loved to 
help others in the highest things of life, the things 
that relate to eternity, but He was ivilling to sacri- 
fice Himself utterly for the good of others, and He 
did do it. 

On the cross He gave His life for man. Thus I 
come face to face with a mysterious fact and doctrine, 
— the atonement ! I cannot understand the philos 



False and Trtie Love for Christ. 281 

ophy, but I accept the fact, I bow reverently before 
it, I thank God for it, I rest in it. The philosophy 
of it, I hope with angels to look into, in the ages to 
come. But this I know, that, when in Gethsemane 
He said, " Not as I will, but as Thou wilt," He made 
for humanity a surrender of everything in self. He 
hung on the cross, He gave up His life, volunta- 
rily, for the good of the souls of men. 

How much do you love to help men ? How much 
are you willing to sacrifice ? How much are you wil- 
ling to give that you may help your neighbor, — the 
guilty, the impotent, the heathen, — absent from you 
or present with you ? How far are you willing to 
sacrifice the fashions and so-called demands of 
society for the good of your fellow-man ? A lady once 
said to me : "I do not propose to have my life gov- 
erned by the church ; I propose to do as I please. 
If I wish social enjoyment, in the dance, the card- 
table, the theatre, I shall have it. What right have 
people to ask me to make sacrifices for their good ? " 

On the other hand, there are those who say : " I 
must not live to please myself ; and if my influence 
imperils anybody's character or destiny, I must sur- 
render myself entirely to the line of duty, though it 
may cost me loss among those with whom I associate, 
though indeed I may sacrifice the society in which I 
have lived." 

There comes a young fellow into the city to engage 
in business. He is for the first time exposed to the 
temptations of the city. He is thrown into the soci- 
ety of professing Christians, and he is by their exam- 
ple led into lines of life prohibited by solicitous 
parents. His new-found friends excuse themselves on 
the ground that "it is our business to enjoy ourselves, 



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and not consider our influence on other people. 
What right have other people to say what I shall do, 
and what I shall not do? Let us live to enjoy our- 
selves, and let other people do as they please." 

Said the gentleman of the house to a young 
man invited as his guest : " We are now about to en- 
joy a game of cards. Will you play with us ? " The 
young man replied: "You must excuse me. My 
mother has been anxious that I would never 
touch cards. She says there is no good in them. She 
says that, though a game of cards has nothing essen- 
tially evil in it, the institution of the card-table is, on 
the whole, a dangerous thing in society. She says if 
the card-table were to-day abolished, nobody would be 
the loser. She says also that thousands who engage 
in card-playing are in peril from certain evils peculiar 
to the institution. Therefore she urged me not to 
play." His friend, the Christian gentlemen, replies : 
" Your mother lives in the country. She is not familiar 
with the habits of the best society. She is a simple- 
hearted woman, undoubtedly sincere ; but you must 
learn to govern your own conscience, and not let your 
conscience govern you. You must remember that in 
fashionable society everywhere, these things are done, 
and you will lose caste if you don't do them. People 
will laugh and sneer at you unless you go with them, 
and you must be so thoroughly master of yourself 
that you can avoid excess." Under the pressure of 
this argument, the young man hesitatingly yields to 
this " Christian" gentleman in his elegant home, and 
plays his first game of cards. What fascination there 
is in it all to him ! He now sees no possible harm in it. 
The spell falls upon him. lie plays again and again. 
He says: 14 1 think it is delightful. How much I have 



False and True Love for Christ. 283 

lost in not having tasted this pleasure before ! Now 
I have something to do in my leisure hours. Life will 
not be so desolate in these days as it has been, and I 
shall be no longer lonely." And the fire burns within 
him ; his eyes flash, and every nerve is thrilled. His 
mother knew well enough why she did not wish him 
to learn. His grandfather had, through the card-table, 
gone down to perdition, — had learned to play, yielded 
to the spell, been swept away by the habit, had be- 
come a confirmed gambler, and gone to ruin. So she 
tried to make her boy promise that he would never do 
it ; but, through family shame, had never told him 
why. And the Christian man, without heroism enough 
to give up a useless thing, the tendency of which on 
the whole is evil, leads the young fellow to evil 
through self-gratification. And how can I bear to 
hear him say to the Christ : " Thou knowest that I 
love thee" f 

I assure you, my dear friends, in the name of the 
eternal God, you never love Christ genuinely till you 
are willing for the good of others to sacrifice every- 
thing that may by possibility be harmful to,them, and 
that can be of no possible spiritual good to you. Do 
you love Christ ? Then, if necessary, surrender your 
tastes, your preferences, your delights, where no good 
can come from their indulgence. The Christ who 
pleased not Himself, but gave up His life for man, is 
your example. This idea of sacrifice for others is not 
a law of this world. Worldly people cannot appreciate 
it, worldly Christians cannot understand it ; but it is 
the law of the kingdom. Remember what Christ gave 
up, and be followers of Him while you say, "Thou 
knowest that I love Thee." 

I call your attention to this important fact, that Pe- 



284 The People s Church Pulpit. 

ter did say, "Lord, thou knowest that I love Thee." 
He said it with those penetrating eyes of the Master 
fixed upon him ; he said it in the presence of the 
standard, as a boy-artist in a picture gallery, standing 
before a masterpiece, might say: "I do appreciate 
it ; I do enjoy it." " But," s.iys a friend, " you cannot 
really and fully appreciate that. It is the work of a 
master, and you can produce nothing of the kind." 
The boy replies : " Perhaps I cannot ; but my soul 
burns within me as I look upon it; and I do rejoice 
in it, and I long for the power to make another like 
it." So Peter looked at the Christ, and said: "Thou 
knowest that I love Thee." 

Peter said it in the memory of his own record ; and 
that is one of the hard things a Christian is required 
to do once in a while, to say : " I have sinned, O 
Christ. I am ashamed. I tremble and blush before 
Thee. But, O Thou Christ, Thou knowest all things. 
Thou knowest that I love Thee." 

Peter "said it with a consciousness of his weakness. 
He remembered the past, but it was as though he said : 
" I am nothing, O Lord ! I cannot answer for what 
I will do ; but Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest 
that I love thee." 

The charm of this whole incident is in the fact thai 
Jesus recognized and accepted Peter's love. Jesus 
Himself elicited the statement. He asked the ques- 
tion, not with scorn or sarcasm. The gentle, bound- 
less, patient love of Christ made the very question it- 
self an evangel : " Lovest thou me ? " 

When Peter told the Lord that he loved Him, Jesus 
at once tested that love by the question twice repeat- 
ed. Then He commissioned him for service Think 
of it! To Peter the unfaithful, to Peter the disloyal, 



False and True Love for Christ. 285 

to Peter the profane, Jesus said : " Feed my lambs," 
"Feed my sheep," "Feed my sheep." 

A few days pass by, and I see Peter standing on 
the day of Pentecost in the presence of the multitude, 
a strong, rugged, bold, outspoken man. The speech of 
Galilee betrayed him, but the power of God possessed 
him. Before Scribes and Pharisees, before the repre- 
sentatives of the hierarchy, before the multitude, he 
openly declared his loyalty to Christ, and charged 
upon them in brave words the murder of his Master, 
and preached to them the power of the Gospel. Ah, 
Peter, assuredly thou lovest Christ ! 

In Druid Hill Park, in Baltimore, is a lovely lake- 
let. I saw it one day, calm as a mirror in the sun- 
light. In the centre of it, rising a few inches above 
the surface of the water, was a small, black object that 
looked like the trunk of a sapling, and as I looked at 
it, there suddenly shot from it, leaping a hundred 
feet into the air, a jet of pure water, that broke into 
the most beautiful curves and fell in spray, filling the 
lakelet with life and beauty ; and as the light shone 
upon it, the sky was filled with fragments of rain- 
bows. Thus the scene upon which I had gazed a mo- 
ment before was transformed by the power of another 
force from above and beyond. 

Thus, from the lofty heights of eternal love, there 
sweeps down into the human heart, rightly connected 
and rightly consecrated, the divine current by which 
Peter was transformed, and by which you and I may 
be transformed, from uselessness and impotency, into 
souls full of beauty and grace. 

Into this new temple, dedicated to the service of 
the Lord Jesus Christ, dedicated to the cause of truth 
and righteousness, dedicated to the masses of the 



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people, I proclaim to you the mighty energies of 
Christ, that come from the celestial realm into the 
human heart, teaching the love of righteousness, the 
love of men, the love of the souls of men, the love that 
sacrifices self for the glory of God and the good of 
men. 

I do not care how guilty you are, I do not care how 
weak you are, I do not care how mighty are the bands 
that hold you to self, I proclaim to you this glad day 
the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ has power to 
transform your selfish, worldly natures until they be- 
come representatives of the divine life, filled with the 
mighty, the sanctifying, the transforming love of 
Christ. 

I asked a blind boy once, on the Mediterranean 
Sea, to whom a brother had been ministering most 
attentively and patiently : " Charlie, do you love your 
brother Jamie?" The little face was radiant as 
he replied : " Do I love Jamie ? Why, of course, 
I love Jamie." "How much do you love him?" I 
asked. " How much do I love him ? " said the boy, 
with puzzled, and then with transfigured face, " How 
much do I love him ? I don't know. I have n't any 
measure for love." 

And so, out of the heart of the Christ who came to 
save men, there flow immeasurable supplies of love. 
" Now unto Him who is able to do exceeding abun- 
dantly above all that we ask or think, according to the 
power that worketh in us, unto Him be glory in the 
church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages world 
without end. Amen." 



SUNDAY EVENING. 



THE FINAL JUDGMENT. 



The Rev. LUTHER T. TOWNSEND, D. 



THE FINAL JUDGMENT. 



" And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God ; and the 
books were opened ; and another book was opened, which is the book 
of life ; and the dead were judged out of those things which were 
written in the books, according to their works." — Revelation xx : 12. 

We have reached this evening the last of the 
services celebrating the dedication of this church. 
You all must have been impressed with the rare 
excellence of the subjects chosen by the different 
preachers. The themes have been hopeful, elevat- 
ing, inspiring. There have been no clouds. This 
frequently is nature's way and is well ; but it is also 
nature's way, and perhaps equally well, after a day of 
unusual splendors, to throw, at the evening hour, a 
cloud upon the sky. In this procedure there may be 
no unkindness meant. The design, rather, may be 
to make men realize that earth is not Paradise, or 
to make them thoughtful, and impress them more 
profoundly with their responsibilities and obligations. 
If this is the design, then, while the cloud and its 
shadow may be unpleasant and unwelcome, still, it 
must be confessed that nature is no less mindful of 
our welfare in overcasting the evening than she is in 
presenting the cloudless morning. 

This discourse is that friendly cloud in the even 
ing sky. 

The entire verse from which the text is taken 
reads thus : — 

" And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God : 
and the books were opened ; and another book was opened. 

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which is the book of life ; and the dead were judged out of those 
things which were written in the books, according to their 
works." 

This, you notice, is a prophetic vision. The apos- 
tle sees and depicts a something yet to be, a some- 
thing many times referred to in the Sacred Scrip- 
tures. It is manifestly proper, in the presence of 
such representations, to ascertain, at the outset, what 
is the meaning involved in the words employed. 

Comparing Scripture with Scripture, the following 
passages will perhaps give a comparatively definite 
idea of what our text teaches : — 

" For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, 
that every one may receive the things done in his body, ac- 
cording to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." 

" So then every one of us shall give an account of himself to 
God. Let us not, therefore, judge one another any r ore." 

" And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest then which do 
such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the 
judgment of God ? 

" Who will render to every man according to hi > deeds. " 

" Therefore judge nothing before the time, in v .il the Lord 
come, who both will bring to light the hidden thi. igs of dark 
ness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts." 

" For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father, 
with his angels ; and then he shall reward every man according 
to his works." 

"Behold, the Loid cometh with ten thousand of his saints, 
to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are un- 
godly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have 
ngodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which un- 
godly sinners have spoken against him." 

" I charge thee, therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus 
Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appear- 
ing and his kingdom : preach the word; be instant in season, 
out of season ; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering 
aud doctrine 



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"And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now 
commandeth all men everywhere to repent ; because he hath 
appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in 
righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained ; whereof 
he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised 
him from the dead." 

" And the sea gave up the dead which were in it ; and death 
and hell delivered up the dead which were in them ; and they 
were judged every man according to their works." 

" For there is nothing hid, which shall not be manifested; 
neither was anything kept secret, but that it should come 
abroad." 

These quotations are taken from the English Ver- 
sion. The Revised Version does not diminish in the 
least their force, nor modify their meaning. We 
may, however, obtain a few additional rays of light 
by looking carefully at two or three of the words 
found in the original text. 

For instance, the Old Testament word, mishpart, 
translated " judgment," includes the idea of judicial 
processes and determinations ; as when a case is car- 
ried before a judge for investigation, trial, and de- 
cision. [Prov. xxix : 9; Is. xliii : 26; Job. ix : 15.] 

The New Testament word, krima, and the word 
krisis, from the same root, likewise convey the 
thought of judicial examination, final decision, and 
even the separation of a condemned person from the 
uncondemned. [Soph. Aj. 586; Thucyd. 3.57 ; Matt, 
v : 40; 1 Cor. v : 1-6 ; vi : 7.] 

The word biblia, found in our text, and translated 
" books," likewise calls for a moment's explanation. 
While, when the connection requires it, the word 
may mean bound books, with pen and ink records 
upon them, yet it is not necessarily thus restricted. 
For biblios may mean the record of an event, whether 



292 The People s Church Pulpit. 

made by letters or pictures, whether upon papyrus 
parchments, tablets of metal, slabs of stone, or any 
other substance upon which such event can be 
written or impressed. In scientific literature, as you 
are aware, this usage is not uncommon. Hugh 
Miller repeatedly speaks of the memoranda and sig- 
natures inscribed upon our planet, as upon the pages 
of a book. 

Says Professor Dana, " This old gray earth, the 
more its leaves are turned and pondered, the more 
does it confirm and illustrate the sacred pages of the 
Holy Scriptures." 

So, too, we are accustomed to speak of invisible 
records on the mind. A modern writer of note 
speaks of the silent and solitary literature of the 
heart. Aristotle was wont to speak of the memory 
as the scribe of the soul. Indeed, no references to 
memory are more common than those which speak 
of it as containing records and as having tablets. It 
is, therefore, both exegetically and philosophically 
correct to speak of the book of memory, whether of 
the individual, or of the universal community or men, 
of angels, and of the Infinite One, as containing a 
record of all that is past. 

When, therefore, we read in the passage before us 
these words : " And the books were opened : and 
another book was opened, which is the book of Life ; 
and the dead were judged out of those things which 
were written in the books, according to their works," 
we must bear in mind that while God's books, ac- 
cording to this passage are very voluminous, they are 
not necessarily such as we are accustomed to see and 
handle. 

Now, as the average Christian consciousness 



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through the centuries has -pondered the foregoing 
passages, and as the soundest scholarship has weighed 
the words employed, a decision has been reached 
which may be stated thus : The Sacred Scriptures 
teach that after the dissolution of the physical uni- 
verse, after Christ has come in His glory, after the 
translation and reembodiment of humanity, there 
will be a public judicial and critical inquiry into the 
conduct of every human being, and that inquiry is to 
be based upon certain records that have been care- 
fully made and faithfully preserved. 

Christianity, finding this doctrine in the Bible, and 
especially in the teachings of Christ, has incorporated 
it into its creed, and has defended it through the cen- 
turies. 

Men from time to time, it is true, have given dif- 
ferent explanations ; for instance, they have said that 
the judgment is constantly taking place; that it is 
final at the moment of death ; and that it is a judg- 
ment on the whole without regard to details of human 
life. But the reply of the orthodox believer has 
been that the Bible teaches otherwise ; though there 
may be daily and hourly judgments, they do not, ac- 
cording to the historic teachings of the church, ex- 
clude the final judgment as predicted in the Scrip- 
tures. It was Schiller who said: "The final judg- 
ment of the world is yet to come; but the judgment 
of the world is its history." Judgments now taking 
place do not diminish, they rather increase, the pro- 
babilities of the judgment yet to be. 

At this point in the discourse there come into view 
several lines of thought which are equally deducible 
from the text, as to the relative importance of which, 
however, it is not easy to decide. 



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We could speak, for instance, of the sublimity of 
that final tribunal, before which the universe of 
intelligent beings, the small and the great, are to be 
gathered at the opening of the books, where each 
individual is to be a witness, and in turn is himself 
to be witnessed for or against. We could likewise 
dwell upon the fact that this doctrine, which makes 
every man and every act of man next in importance 
to infinity, is in harmony with the estimate placed 
upon the human soul throughout the sacred Scrip- 
tures and throughout the realms of nature, as was 
forcibly illustrated in the sermon of Bishop Foster, last 
Sabbath morning. It would be equally legitimate to 
speak of the fitness of such a general and public 
review at the end of all earthly administrations ; or it 
would be fitting to point out the probabilities of such 
review growing out of the deep convictions of the 
human soul ; and of the seeming necessity of publicly 
rectifying the wrongs of this life, rebuking iniquity, 
and rewarding virtue with impartial justice ; or we 
could dwell upon and apply the fact that Christ and 
His apostles, by frequent allusions and by direct 
assertions, urged upon their hearers the doctrine of a 
universal and final judgment, over which the Lord 
Himself, with infinite majesty, shall preside, as 
the strongest and most solemn motive that can be 
urged to induce men to attend at once and contin- 
uously to the work of personal salvation. 

It is apparent, therefore, that the range of dis- 
cussion which is possible under this text must of 
necessity, in a single discourse, be limited. A fitting 
limitation, growing out of the words of the text, may 
be expressed in this proposition : — An exact record 
of every human life is kept, and there will be a full 



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295 



exhibition of that record on the day of judgment. 
This proposition leads us to attempt, first, the clearing 
away of two or three difficulties which in the popular 
mind weigh against this doctrine of a final and criti- 
cal review of human life. 

It is sometimes objected that it is hardly fitting, 
in the order of things, to bring people back from 
heaven and hell in order to judge them, and then 
reconsign them to those places from which they had 
been taken. Therefore, as is claimed, the judgment 
will be at or before death, instead of being at the end 
of the world. This difficulty will of course be urged 
only by those who hold that the teachings of the 
Bible are a commingling of truth and error, and are^ 
therefore, to be believed so far as they conform 
to what " private judgment" or a "higher criticism" 
thinks right and proper ; for the words of Christ 
and the apostles, as we have already seen, fix unmis- 
takably the time of the judgment ; and that time is 
at the end of the world. 

But furthermore, this supposed difficulty, so far as 
the doctrines of Biblical theology are concerned, is 
simply imaginary. 

The teachings of the Bible are that the ultimate ■ 
Heaven and the nether Gehenna are not reached until 
after the judgment. Good people, in the interval 
between death and the judgment, are in a beautiful 
Paradise, but not in Heaven proper. Thus also 
wicked people are now in gloomy Hades, but not yet 
in Gehenna. 

It is not until after the judgment that Christ wel- 
comes the righteous to the Heaven of heavens, and 
consigns the wicked to Gehenna. [Matt. xxv. 34, 41.] 
Whatever may be the faults of the popular theology, 
self-inconsistency is not one of them. 



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Another difficulty, amounting almost to an objec 
tion, that is urged against this final and critical review 
of every human life rests upon the ground that there 
will not be time sufficient. This thought to the aver- 
age mind does doubtless, at first, present embarrass 
ments because of a perpetual hurry in which most men 
find themselves, and in which they are borne along, 
with no time for reflection or rest. But the probabil- 
ities are that we shall be through with all this hurry 
when we die ; that there will be no railway signals to 
quicken the step, no office-hours with their imperi- 
ous claims upon us, no business competition to make 
men desperate ; that in eternity clocks might as well 
never strike, and the hands on the dial never move; 
that there will be no night calling to repose ; that the 
sensations of haste will never be experienced, — one 
day will be as a thousand years, and a thousand years 
as one day ; no adjournments will be moved nor 
thought of, investigation being continuous until ended. 
There will be time enough. To our human compre- 
hension the trouble will be to find enough to do to 
keep men busy through eternity, though doubtless 
God has arranged for that emergency. 

Another supposed difficulty is that, though there 
should be time enough in eternity, still a procedure 
that takes into account all the words and thoughts of 
a man's life, unimportant as well as important, would 
not be worthy of the dignity of such a supreme court, 
and that after a time men and angels, too, would tire, 
losing all interest in the proceedings. But we must 
not forget that the facilities for passing a human life 
in review may be such as to allow of marvellous ra- 
pidity. A glance may be sufficient to disclose the 
whole story, and to impress it forever upon the mem- 



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01 y of every bystander. But even if this were not 
the case, it may turn out that the "biographic pro- 
pensity" in man, which even now often rivets and 
holds attention as does scarcely anything else, may 
in the future be such, in both men and angels, that 
the soul will never tire while witnessing and studying 
even the minutest details of that solemn and seem- 
ingly endless review. 

But it is replied that a word dropped in ordinary 
conversation is an affair apparently of such small 
moment that it would better be forever passed in 
silence. It is only a bit of breath, a trifle in the air — 
so little a thing that it would ill become the majesty 
of heaven to record it, or pass judgment upon it. 

Such is our first estimate ; our later reflection, how- 
ever, is wiser. For we soon discover that a man's 
language is himself. If we wish to know whether a 
man is debased in his soul, we listen to his words, 
— they tell us ; if we wish to know whether a man is 
of noble birth, though clad in rags, we listen to his 
mode of speech, — it tells us. Would men know, for in- 
stance, whether the Lord Jesus was the Son of God ? 
Let them listen ; they will discover, as did the good 
people of Galilee, that " never man spake like this 
man." They are his words, as well and as much as 
his deeds, that distinguished Christ from all others 
who have walked the earth,. 

" Words are the sounds of the heart," says the 
Chinese proverb. 

Ben Jonson's statement occurs to you : " Language 
is the mirror of the soul. Speak, that I may see 
thee!" 

"Thy speech betrayeth thee," can be said of every 
man, as well as of Peter. With just reason, there- 



298 TJit People s Church Pulpit. 



fore, does our Lord tell men that the issues of eter- 
nity hang upon their words. 

Thoughts cherished, as likewise an impure glance 
Df the eye, have set in operation forces, under given 
circumstances, whose results have been the ruin of 
souls almost without number. What, then, is there 
that will be too trifling for examination on the day 
of judgment? Certainly our words, those wonderful 
exponents of character and being, are not too 
trifling. 

It is recorded of our Lord that he looked up to 
heaven and sighed when he loosed the tongue of a 
dumb man. Need we wonder, provided he were think- 
ing of the increased responsibility that came to that 
man ? How sharply defined is the announcement of 
the Master : " But I say unto you that every idle word 
(every trifling word, so unimportant seemingly as to 
amount to nothing, "argon" useless, is the meaning) 
that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof 
in the day of judgment." 

These, we must bear in mind, are Christ's an- 
nouncements, not yours nor mine; his teachings, 
not our opinions. He, the Judge beforehand, 
announces his decision that every word, though 
seemingly useless, is of account, and is to be taken 
into account. Shall we doubt ? Or is our recent 
criticism of an order so high that it confers on men 
the privilege, if they like, of discarding teachings 
which beyond all question fell from Christ's lips ? 
Are men so far advanced as to regard these an- 
nouncements as out-grown theological ghost-stories, 
to be rejected because in the nineteenth century 
there is no belief in ghosts ? But to these matters, if 
there is need, we will again return. 



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Having now presented these popular objections, 
and attempted a reply to them, we are prepared 
to point out certain strong probabilities in support 
of the fact that an exact record of every human life 
is kept, and that some time in the future there will 
be a final and critical review of that record. At- 
tention is called first to certain facts gathered from 
the material universe. 

As the scientist studies the various problems of 
matter, he finds stronger and stronger evidence that 
what is called Nature is constantly making careful 
and enduring record of everything that transpires 
within her domains, and that she is able to present 
a full store of evidence when called upon to do so. 
This is nature's bent and trend. The science of 
geology, for instance, is but the reading of nature's 
exact record of what has been going on in the earth 
during the last thousand million years. But let us be 
a little more specific. The physiologist does not now 
hesitate to assert that every act, word, and thought 
is accompanied with some displacement or movement 
of the particles of the brain, and that a record of 
these movements is in every instance carefully made 
and preserved, — in a word, the brain, could we look 
into it, would be found written through and through, 
within and without, with inscriptions telling the story 
of every thought conceived and emotion felt ; and 
that whatever renewals of the matter of the brain 
there may be, still the records are left intact, as the 
wound on the hand of a child leaves a perpetual scar, 
though there are constant changes of the materials 
entering into the organic structure of that hand. * 

* Dr. Edward Clarke, in his work entitled " Visions," thus states this thought : 
The cerebral cells are modified by impressions made upon them, and the modifica 



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But this is not all, for of the physical heart the 
same statements essentially can be made. Every 
person in this congregation knows that in a moment 
of excitement the heart changes its pulsations ; but 
perhaps not every one has thought that of all these 
changes, however slight, a record is made, and is 
carefully preserved in the organic structure of the 
heart. The dishonest official or employee thinks he 
has successfully covered up his tracks ; but every 
irregular and crooked way is traced upon the tissue 
of his heart, from which, while his heart lasts, no 
obliteration is possible. 

Dr. Richardson, the eminent physiologist, has 
reached a conclusion which, in the interest of science, 
he states thus : "I believe that not a single external 
impression can be made on the senses that is not 
conveyed to the heart and registered upon it." 
" Not a single impression " are forcible words. Our 
active business and overworked professional men 
need not, therefore, be surprised if nervous prostra- 
tion becomes in some unknown manner a part of the organization of the centres 
affected, and one which persists in spite of the continual metamorphoses to which 
ihey are subjected. As a cicatrix upon the skin, following a burn or wound, will 
retain its place and structure as a part of the skin, through all the changes of growth 
and nutrition from childhood to old age, so a cerebral cell, or group of cells, retains 
the type which impressions have stamped into it through all the changes of cerebral 
development and action ; the millions of visual impressions made on the cells of the 
angular gyri by the objective world, from childhood to old age, leave traces of 
greater or less distinctness there." 

Dr. Ferrier, in his work entitled "The Functions of the Drain," shows that per- 
manent impressions are made not only upon the angular gyrus, but that each part 
and particle of the brain receiving impressions of all kinds, from the outward or the 
inward world, is as really modified and impressed as is the sensitized plate of the 
photographer when an object is thrown upon it in a clear sunlight. Alexander 
Bain, in his treatise upon " The Mind and Body," estimates that there are twelve 
million cells in the gray covering of the brain, and four thousand eight hundred 
millions of fibres, and each fibre is a book of records. " Evidently," as Dr. Clarke 
remarks, " here is sufficient material for whatever grouping or action may be neces- 
sary to receive, register, and report the most varied expression of the longest human 
life." 



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301 



tion overtakes them, for these great centres of vi- 
tality, the brain and the heart, cannot bear every- 
thing ; the impressions and inscriptions upon them, 
day and night, year in and year out, are often too 
deep, frequent, and jagged to leave them healthful. 
Every hour of agony, every moment of anxiety, every 
kind of disappointment, makes its abiding 
record. The transactions of " Black Fridays " 
are printed on brains and hearts as well as 
in the newspapers. Those organs of life can 
safely endure much, but not overmuch. When, 
therefore, we call to mind what the late Wendell 
Phillips, whom a few days ago we carried to his 
grave, passed through, especially during those years 
of great political excitement, we need not wonder 
that the post mortem examination found the heart 
of that consummate orator, uncorrupted citizen, and 
devoted friend and husband well-nigh torn in pieces. 
His first speech, his last speech, the insult and abuse 
of a lifetime, and the solicitude for his invalid wife 
were all cut upon it as with an engraver's chisel. 
His heart gave out ; he died ; there is no wonder. And 
could Pilate have looked upon the heart of Christ 
when taken from the cross, he would not have mar- 
velled that he died so soon : Gethsemane, Calvary, 
and the sins of the world were stamped upon that 
heart, and had literally broken it ; the recording pen 
and the chisel had torn through its flesh encase- 
ments before the soldier's spear had found its way 
thither. The water and the blood were already in 
the heart's case, ready to flow from it. 

But let us pass for a moment from the brain and 
the heart to other parts of the human organism. 
Dr. Hosmer insists, inasmuch as there are unbroken 



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connections between the heart and the nerves and 
fibres of the body, that every impression is recorded 
upon the entire man as well as upon the brain and 
the heart, and that every part of the body is modified 
and changed, for the better or for the worse, by a 
man's speaking and thinking, by every word spoken, 
and every thought cherished. A library of books, 
therefore, is this human body, and the volumes are 
so numerous that they cannot be computed. Indeed, 
the brain is an immense library of itself, and so is 
the heart, while every fibre from head to foot is like- 
wise a book, or perhaps many books. Certainly, 
therefore, man carries with him and within him, 
wheresoever he goes and until the last moment of life, 
indisputable and indestructible evidence of the fact 
that what is called Nature is constantly making care- 
ful, numerous, and enduring records of whatever 
transpires within her dominions. This seems to be 
at once her business and her delight. 

But before completing and applying this argument, 
it is necessary to show that nature's records of 
man's doings and sayings are not confined exclu- 
sively to his physical organism, but are likewise 
written upon the whole material universe. 

For instance, it is an acknowledged datum of 
science that any expended energy, of whatever kind 
and however slight, cannot be lost. No fact in 
science, perhaps, is better established than that of this 
transference and conservation of force. Hence, the 
physicist now says that the fall of a cambric needle 
upon a lady's carpet is felt by every planet ; and that 
the lifting of the hand sends a vibration up and 
down to the stars. Hence, several men of science, 
among whom are Babbage and Jevons, assert that 



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303 



such records as have been made upon the human 
body are in every instance transferred to and trans- 
cribed upon every planet and every star, for the 
reason that any displacement or motion which 
takes place in the brain or on the earth is, by the 
laws of gravitation and of the correlation of forces, felt 
everywhere. Everywhere, we are told, is a whis- 
pering gallery. Or to change the figure, the entire 
universe is a telephone, by placing the ear against 
which, you are in connection with every spot 
everywhere ; and were the ear sufficiently acute, you 
could hear, not only the terrific explosions now 
taking place on the sun, and the fierce roaring of the 
flames on every one of the fixed stars, but you could 
hear the faintest sigh of the wind on the remotest 
star, as easily as the Indian, by placing his ear to the 
ground, detects the footfall of friend or foe ; indeed, 
more easily. 

But the universe is not only a telephone ; it is now 
decided that it is also a phonograph. You are all 
aware that through the agency of the phonograph 
upon a little piece of tinfoil, only ten inches square, 
forty thousand words can be recorded, with every con- 
ceivable variation of accent and intonation, and when 
sterotyped, may be repeated without deviation until 
doomsday. Wljy, therefore, may not the physical 
universe be that stereotyped piece of tinfoil ? 
Every scientific mind, the world over, would almost 
condemn me for putting this matter in an interroga- 
tive form. These men unqualifiedly affirm that the 
physical universe is that stereotyped piece of tin 
foil. 

Says Professor Fisk, quoting from and endorsing 
other scientists: — 



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" ' The track of every canoe, of every vessel that 
has yet disturbed the surface of the ocean, whether 
impelled by manual force or elemental power, re- 
mains forever registered in the future movement of 
all succeeding particles which may occupy its place. 
The furrow which is left is, indeed, instantly filled 
up by the closing waters ; but they draw after them 
other and larger portions of the surrounding ele- 
ment, and these again, once moved, communicate 
motion to others in endless succession.' In like 
manner, 'The air itself is one vast library, on whose 
pages are forever written all that man has ever said, 
or even whispered. There, in their mutable but 
unerring characters, mixed with the earliest as well 
as the latest sighs of mortality, stand forever re- 
corded vows unredeemed, promises unfulfilled, perpetu- 
ating in the united movements of each particle the 
testimony of man's changeful will.' In some such 
way as this, records of every movement that takes 
place in the world are each moment transmitted, 
with the speed of light, through the invisible ocean 
of ether with which the world is surrounded." 

Watchful, attentive, and very busy, therefore, are 
nature's recording angels ! 

Jevons, quoting from Babbage, says : "If we had 
power to follow and detect the minutest effects of 
any disturbance, each particle of existing matter 
must be a register of all that has happened." 

It follows, therefore, not only that the universe as 
a whole, but that each particle of matter, is a phono- 
graph, enstamped with the entire past. With an car 
constructed for the purpose, the common seashell 
would give the listener, not only the imaginary moan 
of the ocean, but would also repeat the shouts of the 



The Final Judgment. 305 

multitude at the crucifixion of Christ, the groans of 
the Egyptians when engulfed in the sea, the plead- 
ings of Joseph when sold to the Ishmaelites, and the 
words that passed between Adam and the Lord God 
in Eden. 

With an eye detective enough, one could read on 
the little pebble picked from the gravel bank, not 
only the story of the upheaval of the Alps, but. 
equally well the first song ever sung by the angels. 

Not only words, but thoughts, too, in these various 
records are included. 

Professor Wundt, in his " Physiology of Psychology," 
frequently speaks of " physiological irritation " de- 
veloped in consequence of "psychical irritation;" 
the plain English of this is that the thud of a 
thought in or against the tissue of the brain is tran- 
scribed upon it. But since the brain is related to 
and connected with all physical nature, it follows 
that the thud of a thought in or against the tissue of 
the brain is transferred to and transcribed upon 
every part of the physical universe. 

Deeds, words, and thoughts, telephoned and phono- 
graphed everywhere, show how few are the chances for 
secrecy. Villany cannot hide its hand, nor Virtue 
her head. A man has spoken an impure word, or 
uttered a profane oath, or has had an impure or a 
profane thought : there is no stopping it, no blotting 
it out. The report of it is rushing on and on for- 
ever, and is constantly receiving new registrations, 
here and there, near and far, during its progressive 
journey, — a registration on the moon, on Jupiter, on 
the sun, on Algol, and on stars even more remote. 
This is one of the most irrefutable of recent scientific 
conclusions. Here is the exactest double-entry 



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bookkeeping. Record balances record, book balances 
book. Chapter and verse may be compared with 
chapter and verse, provided any man should make bold 
to dispute his record. 

A multitude of facts, related and correlated, vari- 
ously recorded and variously announced, will corner 
and silence even the shrewdest man. Appeal to 
other or higher tribunals will not be thought of. 
Not only the voice of the Master, but the voices of 
the millions of things will be heard, saying, M For I 
was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat." 

In addition to all this, it is now more than hinted 
that this universal telephone and phonograph are pos- 
sessed of a magnifying power becoming microphonic. 
That they have also an image-producing power is per- 
haps no longer questioned. We are therefore hence- 
forth to think of the universe as being a vast micro- 
phone and a vast telopticon, and possibly we are as 
yet only on the threshold of finding out the sly and 
skilful listeners who stand about us, above us, below 
us, catching and writing the words of the lips and the 
thoughts of the heart. The universe seems to be all 
ears and all eyes, never forgetting anything, pos- 
sessing also this strange power of announcing in tones 
of loudest thunder the most secret thoughts of the 
heart, and of throwing them upon a limitless canvas 
with vastly bolder strokes than ever followed the 
brush of a Michael Angelo. Oh, the books of God, 
how wonderful, how voluminous, how clear the type, 
how unmistakable the illustrations ! 

Therefore when the preacher in the pulpit now 
says that the brain, and the heart, and every fibre of 
the physical body, and, indeed, every atom of the ma- 
terial universe is a judgment book that is stereotyped, 



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307 



and hereafter to be opened, the scientist in his la- 
boratory is compelled to reply, " Well, so far as I can 
see, the preacher is right, and Professor Tyndall, in 
his theory of the conservation of force, has put into 
the hand of the theologian a terrible weapon with 
which to defend these ancient doctrines of the church." 
Indeed, modern science allows no evasion of the con- 
clusion that there is somewhere a grand conservatory 
in which are perfectly preserved every thought con- 
ceived and every expression uttered by humanity, and 
to enter this conservatory would be to hear everything 
repeated, re-repeated, perhaps manyfold intensified, 
and that this exacting and relentless conservatory, 
which brings within easy reach every act, word, and 
thought of humanity, is the selected judgment-hall of 
the universe, in which the books are to be opened. 

Now, as we bring to mind the facts thus far pre- 
sented, is it not clear that there are strong probabili- 
ties in support of the proposition that a most careful 
record of every human life is kept, and that some- 
where, some time, all will be exposed ? Nature is but 
an expression of the character and ways of the infinite 
somewhat or some one whom we call God. Nature 
and the Bible, according to Christian belief, are tran- 
scripts from the same original. Forcible and sug- 
gestive is the language of the Apostle, " For the 
invisible things of Him from the creation of the world 
are clearly seen, being understood by the things that 
are made." 

The evidence, therefore, is overwhelming, that 
either these material things themselves are the books 
that are to be opened, or else that they are types of 
the invisible and immaterial books in which God and 
the recording angels are noting every deed, word, 



The People 's Church Pulpit. 



and thought. A denial that records the most minute 
and accurate are kept would, at all events, be a de- 
nial of what the eye is everywhere forced to see and 
the ear to hear. 

More than this ; there is evidence, both scientific 
and Biblical, that these material records of which we 
have been speaking are not only typical of certain invis- 
ible and divine records, but that these material records 
themselves will never be obliterated, even though ap- 
peal to them might not be necessary. The human 
body is to die and return to dust ; but the dust of that 
body will never be what nor where it would have been 
except for its embodiment. The material universe, 
according to both science and the Bible, is to under- 
go decisive changes, but not one particle of it is to be 
annihilated. The human body and the earth we live 
on are, according to the Bible, to be translated and 
spiritualized, but the historic connections are never 
to be dissevered. According to the Bible, and with 
no opposing word from science and philosophy, it will 
be like this : — 

Some morning will dawn upon the earth like other 
mornings ; but while men are busy here and there, an 
unusual glow will flash over the heavens, called the 
" Sign of the Son of man" ; the physical universe will 
be in convulsions, then be dissolved, then revolution- 
ized ; all historic connections will be preserved, every 
particle of matter, with everything recorded upon it, 
will be kept intact, though transmuted and translated 
into surprisingly new and eternal conditions ; and the 
human family, clothed with spiritualized bodies, no 
moral scar and no moral excellence obliterated from 
either brain or heart or fibre, or planet or star, will 
find itself, in the twinkling of an eye, ushered into 



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309 



the conservatory, where the books will be opened, 
where men will know even as also they are known, 
and where even the thoughts of each soul, visible 
as the sunlight, and audible, if need be, as the voice 
of many thunders, will be awakened, never more 
to sleep or slumber. 

Such, therefore, is the light in which the doctrine 
of the Judgment may, at the present time, be looked 
at. The self-consistency of all the fundamental doc- 
trines of evangelical Christianity has long since been 
acknowledged, and the consistency of each important 
doctrine with this of the Final Judgment, is perfectly 
manifest, while the harmony of the Final Judgment 
with the foregoing scientific facts, many of which 
have been but recently discovered and established, 
can no longer be questioned by any thoughtful per- 
son. This harmony furnishes, beyond all question, an 
indisputable basis upon which a moral demonstration 
of this Orthodox doctrine can be firmly established. 

At this point in the discussion, let us for a moment, 
in a practical way, bring home these matters. What- 
ever you and I, my hearer, have done has been record- 
ed, not by one, but by many recording angels. Those 
things done are to be known and read of all men. How 
does the thought strike us ? Suppose the entire life 
of each one before me were written upon the walls of 
this church, — all our pride, vanity, selfishness, our bad 
thoughts, our sins of omission, our sins of commis- 
sion, everything, to the extent of word and thought, — 
who of us, this evening in company with those who 
now have for us unqualified respect, and who calls us 
friend, would like to look upon that record ? But look 
upon it in just that company we must. This is a 
scriptural and a scientific conclusion, inevitable as the 



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The People s Church Pulpit. 



nature of things. Well may the exclamation break 
from the lips of each, " Oh, wretched man that I am, 
who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? " 

You all now recognize the fact that this dis- 
course would not be complete without showing lastly 
the hope that religion holds out to a man, the record 
of whose life has been what it should not have been, 
or has been such as to make him blush or weep. 
And we would first guard against hopes that have no 
good foundation. 

It is said, for instance, that the sins, at least of re- 
deemed men, are by a divine decree to be covered, 
concealed, removed as far as the east is from the 
west, scattered as the cloud and the mist, obliterated. 
While the scriptural representations upon which this 
opinion is based mean something, and much, still it 
is as clear as daylight that for a transgression liter- 
ally to be as if it had never been is a theological, phil- 
osophical, and scientific impossibility. The commit- 
ted sin has produced an effect, a lasting effect, that 
would not have been produced if the sin had never 
been committed. This is as true of the sins of the 
redeemed as of those who are not redeemed. Does 
the redeemed man, any more readily than the unre- 
deemed, forget that he has been a sinner ? Anything 
that has entered into the consciousness cannot be ef- 
faced from that consciousness. The memory retains 
all the mind's knowledge, of evil as well as of good, 
though at a given moment it may not be able to re- 
produce its knowledge, whether good or bad. Those 
who have been resuscitated when nearly drowned 
have testified that in the fearful crisis when the soul 
was about giving up its hold on life, every event of the 
past was instantly flashed before the astonished gaze ; 



The Final yudgme?it. 



that is, consciousness in such crises throws wide open 
all her doors and windows ; nothing is left in conceal- 
ment. So far as the faithfulness of the record and 
the fulness of its revelations are concerned, it makes 
no difference whether the man is saint or sinner. 
Redemption is not to destroy the nature or operations 
of the mind. If a man has sinned, he never can 
effectually escape it, deny it, nor forget it. The record 
is in and is a part of himself : if he remains, the 
record remains ; if the record is blotted out, he must 
be blotted out. Are our minds ever and anon running 
over the pages of that book called memory, reproduc- 
ing some things we wish had never been ? That act is 
therefore a hint of what is to take place in an endless 
future. 

But again, there can likewise be no forgetfulness 
in the divine mind. Could God shorten his memory, 
or forget anything, even the merest incident that has 
transpired in his universe, there would be a loss in 
the divine consciousness ; indeed, God's personality 
would thereby be dethroned, and his existence would 
inevitably come to an end. Hence, if he should, in 
an intellectual sense, forget any single sinful act of 
any one of his children, even the humblest, he would 
no longer be God. Therefore, relief, if it comes to 
the redeemed on the day of judgment, must be in 
some other way than through either human or divine 
forgetfulness. 

But, it is asked, are not God's power, considerate- 
ness, and kindness such as to justify the conclusion 
that he can and will invent some other way of saving 
his children from these rigorous and mortifying expos- 
ures ? May there not be, on the part of humanity, 
some sort of oblivion for all the misdeeds of the re- 



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deemed ? That would indeed be a pleasant inference 
for most Christians, and perhaps your preacher has 
as much reason as have some of his hearers to wish 
that the sins and imperfections of the past may be 
obliterated. But it must be confessed that there is 
not yet discovered the slightest foundation upon 
which to base that wish. Consider for a moment : 
how could the sins of the unredeemed be fully ex- 
posed without involving an exhibition of those of the 
redeemed ? The lives of both have been inseparably 
interwoven ; they are warp and woof of the same 
great web. Often as otherwise, transgression has 
been a copartnership between those who have re- 
pented and those who have remained in impeni- 
tence. Conceal the deeds of the one, and concealed 
must be those of the other ; expose the one, exposed 
must be those of the other. If all the sins and im- 
perfections of the righteous are to be blotted out, of 
what use would be the opening of the books ? The 
evidence remaining would not be a chain, but would 
be odds and ends and shreds. What though Adam 
repented and was redeemed : can the stn of any man 
be thought of in the future world, if we believe the 
Bible record, without thinking of Adam's connection 
with that sin ? The successful hiding of the sin of 
any man would involve the possible obliteration of 
all recollection of every sin, and that would carry 
with it the universal wrecking of personality and con- 
sciousness. 

But aside from this, even granting the possibility 
of the obliteration of sin, what evidence exists that 
God intends or inclines to expunge sin from the 
record of any person ? Here, for illustration, is a man 
who naturally has a pleasing face. This man be- 



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313 



comes a tippler, then a drunkard, then a sot. Is 
God very careful to conceal the facts ? Does his 
kindness and does his considerateness go very far in 
hiding these matters ? Nay, he writes the facts one 
after another upon every feature and upon every 
fibre of that man. Were our detective faculties suf- 
ficiently schooled, we could discover that every ex- 
cess, and every indulgence, and every sin, and every 
thought is recorded and is published. And when 
the man reforms, the old record, though modified 
somewhat by the new record of his reform, remains, 
nevertheless, in every fibre of his body and in every 
part of his being. 

The order of divine providence is not concealment, 
but exposure, sooner or later. As the apostle 
says : — 

" Some men's sins are open beforehand, going be- 
fore to judgment ; and some men they follow after. 

" Likewise also the good works of some are mani 
fest beforehand ; and they that are otherwise cannot 
be hid." 

What ground is there, therefore, for the supposi- 
tion that God is too kind and considerate to expose, 
upon the day of doom, the misdeeds of humanity? 
There is not a shred of evidence, even though it 
were possible for him to do so, that he will conceal, 
or allow any concealment. 

The scar on the face of the redeemed sinner re- 
mains, and so far as the scar is concerned, it remains 
just as if it were upon the face of one who is unre- 
deemed. It is not the sin of the redeemed man that 
remains, but the scar of the sin ; not the malice, but 
the monument of the malice. 



3 14 The Peoples Church Pulpit. 



Or what other inference can be drawn from the 
records of the Bible ? Has God ever hesitated to 
publish the sins of his dearest children? The will- 
fulness and disobedience of the Israelites are made 
the most prominent part of their history. The 
drunkenness of Noah, the falsehood of Abra- 
ham, the deceits of Jacob, the conduct of David 
in the case of Uriah, the denials of Peter at the 
trial of Christ, the persecutions of which Paul was 
guilty, though forgiven, have never yet been ex- 
punged from sacred history ; nor is there any 
evidence or likelihood that they ever will be ex- 
punged from sacred history. 

In view of these facts, there is not, we repeat, the 
slightest ground for an expectation, even in case of 
the Christian, that the dark record of life will, by a 
divine fiat, be obliterated. It is to be allowed to 
remain, and will remain forever in the divine con- 
sciousness, in the human consciousness, and on the 
great tablet of all things. 

But if this record of unrighteousness is to remain, 
an object to be gazed at through eternity, what pos- 
sible ground of hope is there for a penitent sinner? 
Might not many redeemed men well desire that their 
consciousness should sleep at death, and never wake ? 

There would seem evidently but one way of answer- 
ing this question and that affirmatively, provided that 
the record of human life has in it nothing good and 
praiseworthy. But it should be borne in mind that 
theology, philosophy, and science unite in the asser- 
tion that the records of life are strictly impartial. 
Many times in the Scriptures the words recur, 
"judged according to their works." If, for instance, 
the soul's surrender to temptation is recorded, its re- 



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315 



sistance of temptation is also recorded ; if the record 
of sin cannot be obliterated, neither can the record of 
righteousness. We mention this fact of impartiality, 
therefore, as the first ground of substantial hope and 
comfort to a man whose penitence has led to reform, 
and to a life of righteous conduct. To be sure, if it 
were possible for one to go through this world with 
no sin, in deed, in word, or in thought, in commission 
or in omission, the celestial record of that life would 
be sublime, and salvation would be secured. [Luke x: 
25, 28. ] But still that sinless and stainless life will 
not be the only sublime one. Praiseworthy too will 
be the records of other lives when all the facts are 
taken into account, as most certainly they will be. 
There are many men who have had temptations to fall 
into vice and to commit crime, temptations to which, 
perhaps, you, my hearers, have never been subjected. 
Those men in evil moments have fallen, sadly, deeply, 
terribly fallen ; but, seeing their mistakes, they have 
risen, penitent and broken-hearted. This, during a 
series of years, may have been many times repeated, 
but at length those tempted and struggling men have 
conquered. In the presence of temptations, they be- 
come men of iron, with sinews of steel. Are not 
such lives sublime ? Such a reform makes the life, as 
a whole, appear marvellously different. 

The apostle Paul affords an illustration. His early 
record is sad and sinful enough. His heartless perse- 
cutions of innocent men and women are certainly ap- 
palling. It was while thinking of those past transgres- 
sions that he judged himself to be the chief of sinners. 
But before making final estimates, there must be 
placed over against this record of sin that, other 
record of righteousness, — even a life entirely devoted 



316 The Peoples Church Pulpit. 

to the good of humanity, a life which was an honor 
to the Creator. So transcendently beautiful and 
sublime is that later career of the apostle that his 
early transgressions seem to fade from view, and he 
becomes a saint. The incense of his consecrated 
deeds and life overspread the heavens as with a su- 
perb drapery ; we forget the storm that has passed 
while looking at the cloud-gildings and rainbow that 
follow the storm. Likewise the lives of such men as 
Count Brandt, Lord Littleton, Richard Cecil, Baron 
Haller, John Newton, and John Bunyan show that 
the record of righteousness may be so redemptive and 
attractive that the earlier records of unrighteousness 
will be thrown far in the background, and that none 
but an evil mind would think of calling attention to 
them. Or take an illustration from our own time 
and midst, that of John B. Gough, the friend whom 
we all love so much. Recall his early and sad his- 
tory, as he himself has often depicted it. Many 
times and before multitudes of people has he wept 
when recalling the past, and when comparing his life 
with what appeared to him the bright and resplendent 
lives of other men. But before any condemnation 
escapes our lips, and before unfavorable compari- 
sons are made, we must take into account his temp- 
tations, his struggles day and night, his griefs, his 
heart-anguish, his prayers and supplications for for- 
giveness, his love to Christ and for his fellowmen, 
his labors in behalf of the fallen, and, too, we must 
think of the thousands and thousands whom he has 
indirectly benefited, and of the multitudes who, in 
consequence of his encouragements, have become 
true and noble men. It is when we think of this 
record of righteousness that his name seems as if en- 



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317 



shrined, and no one will hesitate to place it alongside 
those of the noblest men who have walked the earth. 
When there is added to a man's sad record the fact ol 
these grand conquests and triumphs later in life, 
then the infinite Father, beholding the soul that has 
thus heroically come up out of the red-hot slags of 
this probationary period, and from the fierce light- 
nings of temptation, calmed and purified through di- 
vine grace, will fold his child to his bosom and for- 
bid impeachment ; and the angels, looking upon the 
record, will glorify God, and almost worship the man. 
Thus a life that has been sinful may become so 
Christlike that the past transgressions and infirmi- 
ties can hardly be seen, so dazzling shall be the lustre 
of the subsequent consecration. 

Is your record, my hearer, such, when thought of, 
as to send a blush to the cheek, or anguish to the 
soul ? There is this ground of hope and encourage- 
ment, however, — that the distress will be lessened, 
other things being equal, by the good that is done. 
It is unevangelical to forget that every righteous 
deed, word, and thought is memorized. Our fellow- 
men may not know what we do, but known it is, and 
published it must be. " For there is nothing covered 
(as the apostle forcibly presents the case) that shall 
not be revealed ; neither hid, that shall not be 
known. Therefore, whatsoever ye have spoken in 
darkness, shall be heard in the light ; and that which 
ye have spoken in the ear in closets, shall be pro- 
claimed upon the house-tops." 

Each good thing about you, O child of God, is told in 
the ear of the universe ; and the heart of the universe 
never forgets ; and the voice of the universe, when 
the time comes, faithfully reports what the ear of the 



3io The Peoples CJuirch Pulpit. 



universe has beard, and what its heart has con- 
cealed. 

A few months ago, a beautiful life, that had been 
consecrated with yours, my brother, to the building 
of this church, was laid upon its holiest altar. There 
is her memorial window, a tender remembrancer of 
the love borne her by this people ; but there is some- 
where another memorial window, transcendent in its 
beauty, which, however, cannot be looked upon until 
we too have climbed the spiritual Alps, and have 
entered the conservatory. 

Not only these sacrifices of much labor and of life, 
but even every religious impulse, as, for instance, 
that which has sent its offering, however humbly, and 
from whatever distance, to build this church, is like- 
wise a song of praise written upon the glowing stars. 
On fly the stars, carrying with them, to the centre of 
things, the story of the motive and the offering. Is 
it, therefore, any matter of wonder that every object 
seems to have a voice, shouting its friendly entreaties 
into the ears of men, urging them to " redeem the 
time," to be less selfish, more noble, and to " work in 
the vineyard " ? Thomas Carlyle has wisely inter- 
preted and forcibly announced the voice that comes 
from the soul of things : — 

" Behold, the day is passing swiftly over, our life is 
passing swiftly over ; and the night cometh, wherein 
no man can work. The night once come, our happi- 
ness, our unhappiness, — it is all abolished, that has 
not vanished ; our work, behold, it remains, or the 
want of it remains, — for endless times and eternities, 
remains ; and that is now the sole question with us, 
forever ! Brief, brawling day, with its noisy phan- 
tasma, its poor paper crowns, tinsel gilt, is gone; and 



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319 



divine, everlasting night, with her star diadems, with 
her silences, and her veracities, is come ! What 
hast thou done, and how ? Happiness, unhappiness, — 
all that was but the wages thou hadst ; thou hast 
spent all that, in sustaining thyself hitherward ; not 
a coin of it remains with thee, it is all spent, eaten. 
And now thy work, where is thy work? Swift, out 
with it, let us see thy work." 

And since God is showering His mercies upon 
men, day after day sparing them, that through 
grace they may yet make records, if they have a 
mind to, which will not shame them, but will glorify 
their Father who is in heaven, how great must be 
the final shame if men continue selfish, and 
there is no noble work to show. 

Does some one reply, " We are saved by faith, not by 
works " ? Alas ! how this doctrine of faith is abused ! 
Says that apostle who is the special advocate of faith, 
" Not the hearers of the law are just before God, but 
the doers of the law shall be justified." 

And the apostle James reiterates and intensifies 
the thought thus : "But wilt thou know, O vain man, 
that faith without works is dead .... For as the 
body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works 
is dead also." 

" Come, . . . for I was an hungered, and ye 
gave me meat ; " " Depart, .... for I was an 
hungered, and ye gave me no meat ;" " Not every one 
that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the 
kingdom of heaven ; but he that doeth the will of my 
Father who is in heaven," — are announcements 
that at once and forever relieve Biblical piety of 
everything that is sentimental and sanctimonious. 



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An available Saviour seems to require a Christ-like 
life, or an effort to lead such a life. The verb " to 
do," as well as the verb "to be," according to Bible 
Christianity, must be conjugated in all its various 
moods and tenses ; any different creed is wholly un- 
scriptural ; indeed, any different creed is treason in the 
domains of Christian faith. You, therefore, who bear 
the Christian name, instead of folding the hands in 
religious ecstacy (in which there may be no shadow 
of religion), if you would be at peace and have bold- 
ness in the day of judgment, must feed the hungry, 
give water to the thirsty, protect the stranger, 
clothe the naked, visit the sick, try to save the lost, 
keep yourselves unspotted from the world, and do what- 
ever else God requires. Must not the Christian be 
religious ? And is not this " pure religion and unde- 
filed before God and the Father, to visit the 
fatherless and the widows in their affliction," and to 
keep ourselves unspotted from the world ? And this, 
too, is pure and undefiled religion, — to visit the fallen, 
the drunkard, the debased, even the poor sot, the one 
lowest down, and in the name and for the sake of 
Christ, lift him from his degradation into the dignity 
of a son of God. The reclaiming of one such soul 
will some day seem grander than the conquest of em- 
pires. 

The announcement of joy in heaven over one repent- 
ant sinner is startlingly suggestive ; it shows not only 
that the celestial telegraphic system is no less rapid, 
curious, and perfect than that which heralds over the 
world the most heroic deeds of our fellow-men, but 
also shows upon what basis will rest the chief hon- 
ors of the future life. Verily, let all men " know, that 
he which converteth the sinner from the error of his 



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321 



way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a 
multitude of sins." 

But does some humble soul, that is not yet able to 
point to anything like a resplendent record, and 
whose efforts, put forth with the best intentions, 
have been seemingly abortive, continue on that ac- 
count to say, " Oh ! wretched man that I am ? " 

This leads us to speak of a second substantial 
ground of hope and comfort to one whose penitence 
has led to reform. It is based upon the fact that the 
record of unrighteousness can be forgiven. The 
Bible so reports, and Christian consciousness so tes- 
tifies. Each human being, as already stated, has a 
record of unrighteousness and unfaithfulness ; in case 
of many men, that record which to-day is partly or 
wholly concealed, will some day seem appalling. But 
if across such a record is written by the divine hand 
the word " Forgiven," the rehef must be marvellous ; 
but the word "Unforgiven," written by the same hand 
across a record no worse, perhaps, than the one that 
is forgiven, carries with it, nevertheless, unutterable 
despair. The import of God's forgiveness has not 
yet among men been fully estimated. Were all that 
is implied in it understood, doubtless no mortal would 
ever again make bold to face the judgment tribunal 
without it. Toward the soul that is forgiven, God can 
act just as though he never thought of the sin that 
had been committed. While he will not conceal 
and cannot forget the record of any man, righteous 
or unrighteous, still he can remember the trans- 
gression, with every aggravating circumstance of 
it, without upbraiding the transgressor ; and he 
will not upbraid the redeemed transgressor, nor 
allow him to be upbraided by any one else. The 



322 



The People s Church Pulpit. 



frown of justice in the hall of judgment, if the soul is 
forgiven, will be turned into pity and love. Though 
the sins of the forgiven u be as scarlet, they shall be 
white as snow ; though they be red like crimson, they 
shall be as wool." The complexion of forgiven 
transgressions, it would thus seem, is entirely 
changed. The scarlet and the crimson are white : 
can anything more be asked ? 

And upon this ground, perhaps, the exhibition of 
forgiven sins will appear, on the day of judgment and 
through eternity, in a wonderfully different light from 
what it does to-day. Exhibition of sin, it must be 
borne in mind, is not in any sense its retributive pun- 
ishment. Indeed, the redeemed man himself may 
hereafter plead to turn state's evidence, and confess 
the whole story. Even in this life, men really peni- 
tent often desire to throw open their hearts to some 
one who will not take advantage, nor misunderstand 
them. Confession seems to be a kind of necessity in 
man's nature. The confessional of the Roman Cath- 
olic Church has in it much wisdom, and though often 
shamefully abused, is one of the vital elements of the 
papal power. There are hearts in this city which 
to-night are well-nigh breaking to tell what they dare 
not tell. 

This also must not be overlooked,— that each re- 
deemed man will have some confession to make. 
Without meaning to this people any disrespect, I am 
safe in saying that every member of this church 
will on the day of judgment have some wrong 
doing or thinking to report. " All are included 
under sin." Forgiven men, with full acquiescence, 
will, therefore, no doubt on that day gladly yield to 
one another their secret faults, as they willingly would 



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323 



now, did they not fear a misunderstanding, or be- 
trayal of confidence. Likely enough, therefore, the 
fullest candor will not increase one iota the soul's 
grief on the day of doom. Ah ! yes, changed won- 
derfully will be the spectacle when upon these con- 
fessed transgressors shall rest, as a beautiful and 
serene light, the wonders of God's forgiveness. If, 
therefore, this forgiveness can be secured, why let 
another day pass without it ? 

But the supreme ground of hope and comfort to 
one whose penitence has led to reform and to a life 
of righteous conduct, and the ground, too, upon which 
good deeds and the forgiveness of God are made 
available, is in what Christ can do for the soul. 

This question is sometimes asked : If the unregen- 
erated man has done as much religious work as the 
regenerated, will not equal blessings await both in 
the world to come ? We are free to reply, Yes, if 
other things are equal. But if other things are not 
equal, the reply is, No. If the unregenerated has 
not been forgiven, if his motives have not been re- 
ligious, like those of the regenerated, and if Christ 
has not been enthroned in the heart of the unregen- 
erated, as he has been in the heart of the regener- 
ated, then between the regenerated and the unre- 
generated, though their outward acts may be the 
same, there is a gulf broader than the universe. In- 
deed, the case will bear even a stronger putting. 

Here is a man, for instance, who has done much 
that, in the world's opinion, is righteous ; but he has 
remained impenitent, and first and last has knowingly 
rejected God's great gift to the world. Now, that 
continued impenitence, that deliberate disobedience, 
that rebellion against the essential Christ, are, accord- 



324 The People s Church Pulpit. 

ing to the teachings of the Bible, high treason in the 
courts of heaven. Such a man commits a crime so 
great — a capital offence — that the universe, looking 
upon it, can hardly see anything else that the man 
has done. That which otherwise would have been a 
record of whiteness looks crimson. In it the uni- 
verse seems to take no delight. As now, when a 
man commits some foul deed, the good he has done is 
thrown under suspicion, or makes the crime seem 
fouler. 

On the other hand, here is a man who has not a 
very brilliant record of what are termed good works. 
He may not have had at command time or means to 
make such a record. Instead of dollars by the thou- 
sand, only mites have been given. But in that other 
book, which is the Book of Life, is this record, — that 
that poor and perhaps unfortunate man sought in 
penitence and grief the Father's forgiveness, and did 
not reject the Son of God ; it is also recorded that 
the cross was the foundation of his hope, that his 
life ever after his reform was an effort to do right, 
that the desires of his heart were larger than his hand 
could accomplish, that he thus struggled and tried 
and died. Now such a life, according to the repre- 
sentations of Christianity, has a radiance about it 
wonderfully transcendent and attractive. In it God 
and all heaven take supreme delight. And besides, 
to such a life, Christ becomes at once and forever a 
glory and a shield. He it is who, in terms full of 
commendation and assurance, pronounces the official 
sentence of life eternal. 

And bear in mind that it is this same august per- 
sonage, the Judge Supreme, who, on the other hand, 
pronounces upon the impenitent the sentence of 



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325 



death eternal, the doom whereof is final. There can 
be no chance for escape ; hope forever must die when 
he who now says, " Come," shall then say " Depart, 
ye cursed." 

What higher ambition is conceivable, or what more 
reasonable, therefore, than for a man to try to live so 
as to hear the Judge say, " Come, ye blessed' 1 ? As- 
sure a man of that approval and invitation, with all 
that is therein implied, and, so far as his own well- 
being is concerned, he need not care nor ask on 
the judgment day for anything else in the universe. 
Forever glorified and shielded is the condition of the 
redeemed soul ! What, then, though on that day or 
thereafter some evil being shall be minded to point 
the finger at the forgiven and glorified man's past 
sinful record ? No harm can come of it, for Christ 
will instantly present himself, and that evil eye will be 
dazzled and then struck blind ; and that evil arm will be 
palsied, and then fall helpless at the side. Or, should 
it chance that the relentless finger of the universe of 
things shall be pointed at the sins of a redeemed 
man, even in that case, before a tear is shed, Christ 
will stand at the side of the one pointed at, engaging 
his closest attention. It is as when a child is in 
trouble : the mother wisely and ingeniously diverts 
its attention from the cause of its trouble. It is thus 
one of the offices of the Saviour to be, if we may use 
the word in its true sense, the penitent and redeemed 
man's perpetual diversion. That is, whenever in the 
future world the sins of the forgiven person, for any 
cause, are about to appear before the mind, Christ 
will pass between the man and the record of sin, di 
vert the attention, and fill the soul with joy that is un- 
speakable and full of glory. Christ is not to destroy 



326 The People s Church Pulpit. 



the record : he is, however, to remove all the baleful 
effects of it. But how terrible, on the other hand, is 
the condition of the one who has no Christ to look to. 
In his case, the merciless finger of the universe re- 
mains fixed ; the sins, in all their horror, rise, stare 
the man in the face until he can see nothing else, and 
continue to stare him in the face, with no diversion 
possible. This fixedness of idea tends to plunge the 
soul into insanity. The unredeemed man, as one 
would think, must inevitably become a spiritual ma- 
niac. How true it is, therefore, from whatever point 
of view looked at, that Christ, here and hereafter, is 
our only glory, our only shield, our only refuge. 
And he, the adorable Saviour, with longing heart 
and out-stretched arms, is now waiting to be the glory, 
shield, hope, refuge, of every penitent person in this 
congregation. 



